By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A charge of statutory rape that a Kansas woman was facing in Jasper County Circuit Court for alleged sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old male baby sitter more than a year ago has been dropped because of the teenager’s reluctance to testify against her.

Prosecutor Dean Dankelson said the charge was dropped at a hearing Monday because the alleged victim, now 16, refused to testify against Ashley Thompson, 23, of Columbus, Kan., since he testified against her at a preliminary hearing on Aug. 2, 2007.

The prosecutor said his office decided to dismiss the matter so that if the teen ever changes his mind, the charge can be filed again.

“I didn’t want to reduce it to a lesser crime and have her plead guilty and then, three years from now, have him change his mind,” Dankelson said.

Thompson was charged in both Kansas and Missouri with having sexual relations with the boy. The defendant’s ex-husband learned of the alleged relationship and reported it to Kansas authorities.

Thompson initially faced three counts in Kansas of aggravated indecent liberties with a child for alleged sexual intercourse with the boy when he was 14 on Feb. 25, March 1 and March 2, 2007, at her house in Columbus. She was charged in Jasper County with second-degree statutory rape for allegedly having sex with him on March 22 of last year, after he had turned 15, in the back seat of her car on a road near Carl Junction.

She pleaded guilty in July in Kansas to a single reduced count of attempted indecent liberties with a child and is scheduled to be sentenced at a hearing today in Cherokee County District Court. The plea bargain was struck there after the teen expressed a reluctance to testify in front of the defendant.