Nathaniel Fodge, who was charged with dozens of counts of child sex abuse, has pleaded guilty to sexual battery. He has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Fodge was supposed go to trial Monday in the Scioto County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge Howard H. Harcha III.

Fodge was indicted in February on 54 counts of sexual battery and 54 counts of unlawful sexual contact with a minor. He was the live-in boyfriend of Andrea Crager, who pleaded and was sentenced in the case earlier this year. The charges came about after Crager was charged as part of a domestic violence complaint in March. Crager had been released on bond and requested deputies escort her to the pair’s Portsmouth home so she could retrieve her belongings. That’s when investigators learned of possible sexual offenses against a minor.

According to the sheriff’s office, Fodge had been having sexual contact with the minor for more than a year.

Crager was given judicial release on July 7 of this year after serving time on charges of endangering childfren and complicity and committing an offense.

Crager was charged with one count of complicity to sexual battery, a third-degree felony, one count of complicity to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a third-degree felony, and one count of child endangerment, also a third-degree felony. She pleaded guilty on Feb. 27 this year and was sentenced to 30 months at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

During her judicial release hearing this summer, Crager’s attorney Christine Scott detailed her client’s work as an EMT, hurricane relief volunteer, and first responder during the COVID epidemic.