Staff photo / Guy Vogrin Candis Wynn reacts after pleading guilty Thursday to an 18-count indictment involving the sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl in late 2018 or early 2019.

WARREN — A former Liberty woman pleaded guilty to an 18-count indictment charging her with sexually assaulting a 3-year-old female relative in late 2018 or early 2019, recording the act on a cellphone and sending the images on a phone to a man.

Candis Wynn, 35, formerly of Lucretia Drive, Liberty, appeared with her attorney, Jeffrey Goodman, before Judge Ronald J. Rice, who sentenced her to a 35-year prison term.

Wynn pleaded guilty to three counts of rape that carry possible life sentences, one count of gross sexual imposition, six counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, four counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor and four counts of illegal use of minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.

Rice said the sentence will be served concurrently with a 25-year federal sentence Wynn received in 2019 after being found guilty of sexual exploitation of children, receipt and distribution of visual depiction of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and possession of child pornography.

Neither Wynn nor Goodman commented when asked by the judge if they had anything to say.

Assistant Prosecutor Gabriel Wildman worked with federal officials to bring Wynn back to Ohio from a federal lockup in Arizona to face prosecution at the state level. Trumbull County jail records show Wynn has been there since April 14, and Rice has said he wanted this case to be off his docket by year’s end.

Goodman, who was appointed by Rice to represent Wynn, had motioned for a competency hearing. At a July hearing, the judge read a psychological report of the defendant into the record, which noted that Wynn knew the wrongfulness of her acts.

On Thursday when Rice asked if there was any restitution in the case, Wildman replied: “She can’t pay back what she stole.”

In the local case, Wynn is accused of having inappropriate sexual conduct with a child who was 3 years old at the time. The late 2018 and early 2019 offenses also included Wynn recording the acts and then sending it to co-defendant Daniel Parker. The investigators found that Wynn used her cellphone to create child pornography and distribute it.

Wynn and Parker were accused of trading images of child pornography via cellphones.

Wildman said the plea was arrived at in consultation with the victim’s family.

“This (guilty plea) will help to prevent this young child from being further traumatized,” Wildman said. “There’s no amount of time that can right the wrongs committed by Ms. Wynn, but 35 years is a good start.”

The cases were investigated by the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local and federal prosecutors.

According to U.S. District Court records, the Trumbull sheriff’s office was contacted by an investigator of the Crimes Against Children Task Force in Cuyahoga County on Jan. 7, 2019, about her agency receiving a tip from Google about child pornography material being disseminated in the area. An investigation found files containing four digital images and three videos from a Google account belonging to Wynn.

The images depicted the sexual assault of a young girl, and a 44-second color video showed an adult male having sexual contact with the minor, according to a criminal complaint.

Investigators were able to determine the images were taken on Dec. 12, 2018, and were recorded on a cellphone.

Using a search warrant obtained by Liberty police Capt. Raymond Buhala, officials obtained a phone belonging to Wynn in which child pornography images were identified. There also were text messages that contained sexually explicit images and videos.

Court records show Parker is serving a federal 21-year, six-month prison sentence after being convicted June 4, 2019, of receipt and distribution of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and sexual exploitation of children, according to court records.

Locally, Parker faces a Trumbull County jury trial scheduled for Oct. 14 before Judge W. Wyatt McKay on six felony charges, including two rape counts that potentially carry life sentences.