A child molesting trial opened this week for a Gary man accused of preying on and sexually abusing two preteen girls.
Joshua Hansen, 32, of Gary, is facing 23 felonies, including three counts of Level 1 felony child molesting. He is facing decades behind bars. He has pleaded not guilty.
The victims’ mother testified Tuesday after the girls confided in a relative, she called Hansen to confront him, then called the police that night.
“I couldn’t really believe it,” she said, adding she was “shocked.”
Later, while she was at the Lake County Special Victims Unit, he called her from jail.
He had “no idea what (he) did to them,” she recounted. The allegations would impact his life, he said.
“You did this to yourself,” she responded.
The two victims told police that they were first molested by Hansen years earlier around ages 4 or 5.
Hansen began molesting them again “several” times in the summer of 2022 and again around Christmas, according to a criminal affidavit, when he allegedly tried to have sex with one child.
“Come on, you’re gonna make me cry, you know I haven’t had it since my girlfriend left me,” he said.
He showed the children pornography, according to the affidavit.
When police executed a search warrant at his trailer on the 4700 block of Marshall Court in Gary, they found sex toys and paraphernalia, and pornography web searches. They removed a tablet for evidence.
They also found child pornography on his cellphone. In total, it had 46,000 pornographic web searches or URLs, according to the affidavit.
DNA evidence appears to corroborate the children’s accounts, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors played the victims’ forensic interviews Wednesday.
Deputy Prosecutor Tara Villarreal is assigned and defense lawyer Marc Laterzo is representing Hansen. The case is before Judge Salvador Vasquez.
The trial is expected to run through Thursday.
