Lima resident Daniel Brisco was sentenced Monday to a minimum of eight years in prison following his conviction by an Allen County jury in May on a charge of rape.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — Maintaining that he is “one million percent innocent” of raping a young woman in 2021, a Lima man is nonetheless headed to prison for a minimum of eight years.
Daniel Brisco, 31, was convicted by an Allen County jury in May of a first-degree felony count of rape for having sex with an 18-year-old female against her will. Jurors acquitted Brisco of a second count of rape that alleged the use of force. The Lima man told jurors during his time on the witness stand that the sex was consensual.
Judge Jeffrey Reed on Monday sentenced Brisco to a minimum eight-year prison stint in two separate cases: the 2021 rape and a fifth-degree felony charge of attempted vehicular assault for an incident that occurred just four months later. The latter charge earned Brisco a 12-month sentence, to be served concurrent with the sentence for rape.
Brisco said he intends to appeal his conviction and sentence.
“I am extremely disappointed in the verdict. I am very much not guilty; the victim perjured herself,” Brisco told the judge. “A mandatory prison sentence for something I did not do weighs heavily on my mental health.”
Brisco was labeled a Tier 3 sex offender and as such must register with local authorities every 90 days for life.
The alleged victim in the rape case, now 20 years of age, told jurors she was staying at the same house as Brisco on South Harrison Street in Lima on the night of Nov. 15, 2021, when she awoke to find his penis inside her vaginal cavity. The young woman said she and Brisco had talked earlier that evening before she fell asleep.
The Lima News typically does not identify victims of sexual assault.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Megan McClean, the woman said Brisco raped her while she was sleeping. McLean, however, suggested that the testimony the woman gave in court on Tuesday differed greatly from a statement she gave Lima Police Department Detective Sean Neidemire following the incident.
