Controversial Former Cedar Creek Lake Blogger Convicted of Child Sexual Assault; Jury Could Assess up to 80 Years

By David Webb
credarcreeklake.com
January 13, 2013

http://www.cedarcreeklake.com/politics--Controversial-former-Cedar-Creek-Lake-blogger-convicted-of-child-sexual-assault-jury-could-assess-up-to-80-years/467

David Webb is a veteran journalist who has written for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. He is now a freelancer who lives in the Cedar Creek Lake area. He is the editor of cedarcreeklake.com. E-mail story ideas to davidwaynewebb@yahoo.com.

CORSICANA -- Joey Dauben, former blog publisher of the Ellis County Observer who maintained a home office on Cedar Creek Lake and covered some local municipal issues, was convicted of child sexual assault Friday, Nov. 12.

A Navarro County jury in Judge James Lagomarsino's 13th District Court took only two hours to convict Dauben of one count of indecency with a child and three counts of child sexual assault. The molestation occurred at a church camping trip Sept. 30, 2007 at Navarro Mills Reservoir Park at a Feast of Tabernacles celebration sponsored by the now-defunct Olive Tree Ministries Church of Waxahachie.

The 14-year-old male teenager who was assaulted did not make an outcry about the assault until the summer of 2008. His mother, who is divorced from the father of the youth who is now 20, did not start contacting law enforcement authorities until about January of 2009 because she thought his father had filed a complaint with the FBI.

She later learned the father, who disappeared in August 2008 and has never been heard from since then, never filed a complaint.

Despite her repeated attempts to get several law enforcement agencies to take her complaint, no one took any interest until she contacted the Texas Rangers in December 2010. An investigation by the Navarro County Sheriff's Department and the Texas Rangers finally began in July 2011.

There is no statute of limitations on child sexual abuse as is the case with murder. The victim testified that he willingly participated in the sexual activity, but an adult who engages in sexual activity with anyone under 17 is committing sexual assault under Texas law unless they are married.

Dauben was indicted and arrested by Navarro County officials in December 2011. In early 2012 he was indicted by Ellis County on charges of fraudulent use of identifying information when he published a story falsely accusing a Red Oak man of sexual assault of his own child. He was convicted in Ellis County on that charge in November 2012, and he received five-years probation.

The former blogger, who has repeatedly declared his innocence and attributed his arrest and indictment to a political conspiracy motivated by his controversial reporting in Ellis County, faces up to 80 years in prison as Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson has asked for the stacking of charges rather than allowing them to run concurrently. Defense attorney Ed Jendzrey is asking the jury to grant Dauben probation.

Dauben's conviction is viewed as ironic because he took a special interest in reporting about sexual assault, child sexual assault and missing children.

The jury will determine his fate Monday, Jan. 14.