YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County jury deliberated only one hour Thursday before returning guilty verdicts on all 12 rape counts and one count of gross sexual imposition against Jeffrey Palmer, 34, of Cleveland.

Prosecutors said Palmer repeatedly raped a girl from summer 2015 to summer 2016 when she was 9 and 10 years old. Palmer had moved in with the girl’s mother in their Boardman apartment after meeting her on a dating service, according to testimony in the two-day trial. The lesser gross sexual imposition conviction was for sexually touching the girl.

Palmer, who did not work during his time in Boardman, was in charge of watching the girl and her two siblings while their mother was at work for several hours per day.

Palmer mostly kept his head down as Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney read the guilty verdicts. She will sentence Palmer at 10 a.m. Monday. Each rape count carries a sentence of 10 years to life. It will be up to the judge to decide whether to run any of Palmer’s rape sentences consecutively. If she does, his minimum sentence will range from 20 to 120 years. His maximum sentence will be life in prison.

Nearly two years after Palmer and the girl’s mother split up, the girl told her mother that Palmer had “touched her,” the mother testified.

“She got tired of waking up to the nightmares,” the woman said when asked why the girl told her mother at that time.

The girl testified at the trial, as did Palmer.

In closing arguments Thursday before the jury began to deliberate, attorney Thomas Zena, who represented Palmer, suggested the timing of the girl deciding to tell her mother about the rapes might be connected to the presence of a new boyfriend in her mother’s life.

“Two years after this guy leaves the residence, mom and her boyfriend are in the dining room discussing Jeffrey Palmer. It just so happens to be the time when the girl walks in the room and says by the way, he did these things to me,” Zena said.

But Jennifer McLaughlin, assistant county prosecutor, reminded the jury of the girl’s testimony.

“She was obviously nervous. She was obviously embarassed and emotional having to talk about these things in front of strangers, and yet she came here and told you about how the defendant violated her body over and over and over again.

“Why would a little girl put herself through that if it never happened?”

erunyan@tribtoday.com