News Photo by Julie Riddle Todd Agar, found guilty of sexually assaulting a child, appears in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court on Friday.

ALPENA — A judge on Friday morning found Todd Allen Agar guilty of one count of sexually assaulting a child when she was around 11 years old.

Judge Jason Elmore, at the conclusion of a weeklong bench trial in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court, said that, though he would have liked more corroborative evidence, he believed the testimony of a woman who said Agar began touching her inappropriately when she was around 6 and eventually raped her.

Elmore said the prosecution had not proven three other charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct related to accusations he sexually assaulted other young girls around 2004 and 2005.

Agar could face up to life in prison for the conviction.

“This conviction brings much deserved closure and justice for all involved,” Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski told The News after the verdict. “So often, these types of cases hinge on the testimony of the victims. We are so grateful for the courage and fortitude shown by the four young women throughout this lengthy process.”

Defense attorneys Rick Steiger and Julie Miller declined to comment.

Agar was brought to law enforcement’s attention through allegations of sexual assault multiple times in the past 17 years, but the charges leading to this week’s trial were not filed until 2018.

At the trial, two witnesses said Agar drank and had sex with them when they were 14 years old, an incident first reported to police in 2005.

Elmore said he had to find Agar not guilty of charges related to those incidents because the prosecution had not met the elements of a first-degree charge.

Those rulings did not mean he did not believe the women, he said.

Had Muszynski issued a lesser charge, of third-degree sexual assault, she could have proven that charge, Elmore said.

Muszynski believes state statute of limitations rules would have prevented her from prosecuting that lesser charge, she told The News.

“It is clear that there’s been a lot of negligence in preparation for this case” over the many years of investigation of Agar, Elmore said, referencing the destruction of police interviews of eyewitnesses, the lack of photos of locations of the alleged incidents, and the lack of interviews of many potentially key witnesses, including the girls’ parents.

Though more corroboration by investigators would have supported her testimony, Elmore said he found credible one survivor’s account of Agar sexual accosting her starting when she was 6 years old and lasting for several years.

Elmore found Agar guilty on the first-degree charge related to that crime.

Initially reluctant to take part in the case against Agar, and 12 years after she first told an investigator what Agar had done to her, the survivor this week provided testimony leading to a guilty verdict that could mean Agar will spend the remainder of his life in prison.

The court will schedule Agar’s sentencing hearing soon.

Before the trial, Agar rejected a plea offer by the Alpena County Prosecutor’s Office that would have required him to plead guilty to three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. A person found guilty of that charge can be sentenced to up to 15 years’ imprisonment.