Wright County man sentenced to 50 years in prison for child sexual abuse

CLARION — It’s 50 years in prison for a Wright County man convicted by a jury of seven counts of sexual abuse.

70-year-old Rickie Withers of Woolstock was accused of four counts of second-degree sexual abuse after having sex with a child under the age of 12, two times between 2018 and September 2021, and two other times between September 2021 and November 2022. Withers was also accused of three counts of third-degree sexual abuse for having sex with a child aged 14 or 15 on three separate occasions between 2019 and November 2022. A Wright County jury returned the guilty verdicts on all seven charges in February.

Withers was sentenced last week by District Judge Rustin Davenport to 25 years in prison on each second-degree sexual abuse charge and 10 years on each third-degree sexual abuse charge. Davenport ordered that Withers serve two of the 25-year sentences consecutively, with the other prison terms to be served as the same time as those charges.