The Brazos County district attorney’s office announced a Burleson County jury found 30 year old Randel Alexander Lister guilty. Then Lister agreed to a prison sentence of 17 years.
Brazos County assisted in the prosecution because the indecent contact with the girl in 2016 violated Lister’s probation from the ten year old robbery and burglary.
The punishment also requires Lister to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
News release from the Brazos County district attorney’s office:
Randel Lister, 30, was found guilty of Indecency With a Child by Contact by a Burleson County Jury on October 8, 2021. The charge stemmed from sexual abuse of a relative. Following the verdict, Lister agreed to a sentence of 17 years in prison. Lister will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
In May of 2019, Lister’s victim made an outcry of sexual abuse to her sister and mother. She disclosed that Lister had sexually abused her about three years earlier. Her mother reported the sexual abuse to the Burleson County Sheriff’s Office. The deputy who spoke with the victim’s mother scheduled a forensic interview of the child at Scotty’s House, Brazos County’s Children’s Advocacy Center.
At trial, the child took the stand and gave details of the abuse she suffered. Prosecutors also called an expert on child abuse and the forensic interviewer from Scotty’s House to explain why child victims of sexual abuse often delay reporting the abuse and the effect that this type of crime has on a child victim.
The jury deliberated for only an hour and a half before finding the defendant guilty.
The defendant was on probation in Brazos County for Aggravated Robbery and Burglary of a Habitation at the time he sexually abused the victim.
Brazos County agreed to special prosecute this case in Burleson County because this crime was a violation of the defendant’s probation in Brazos County.