By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A former Jasper County foster parent was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy who had been placed in his care by the state.

Mark D. Vogl, 48, was sentenced by Circuit Judge David Dally to two 15-year terms at a hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin, with the sentences to run concurrently. Vogl pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree statutory sodomy in June, just before his case was to go to trial.

Vogl had deviate sexual intercourse with the boy at his home on Central City Road west of Joplin between April 13, 2003, and April 6, 2004, according to court records.

The abuse included anal sex and mutual masturbation, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed by an investigator with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department. The abuse reportedly took place while the boy was placed in Vogl’s home and during visits to Vogl’s home after the boy had been placed in another foster home.

Investigators have said they believe there were additional male sexual-abuse victims in Vogl’s case, including other foster children. But in exchange for his guilty plea on the two counts, the Jasper County prosecutor’s office agreed not to pursue additional charges against the defendant and to recommend that any sentences assessed run concurrently.

Vogl is not the only Jasper County foster parent to be convicted of sexually abusing a child who was put in his charge.

Tad B. King was assessed a 15-year sentence in 2001 by former Circuit Judge William Crawford for first-degree statutory sodomy. King initially was charged with molesting three children, one of whom was a foster child.

The judge also sentenced King to serve a five-year sentence for sexual abuse and a one-year term for sexual misconduct, and ordered that the sodomy sentence run consecutively to those two concurrent terms.

Background

Mark D. Vogl was a Jasper County foster parent from Nov. 7, 2002, through Aug. 31, 2004, according to the Missouri Department of Social Services. He was not charged until June of last year with sexually abusing the boy.