Springfield man who gets 13 years for rape had been ‘under the radar’

A Springfield man will spend 13 years in prison after he was convicted of raping a woman at gunpoint in 2015.

Issac Morgan, 24, agreed to plead guilty to rape with a firearm specification, Clark County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll said, in exchange for the state dropping another rape charge and two kidnapping charges.

Clark County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard O’Neill sentenced him Thursday to 10 years for rape and three years for the use of a firearm.

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“This individual specifically is really scary in that his rapes weren’t motivated by anything else but rape,” Driscoll said.

Morgan allegedly picked up two women on two separate occasions in the area of the 700 block of South Limestone Street, he said, brought them to a secluded area and raped them at gun point, he said.

Driscoll said Morgan admitted to the rapes after the agreement was reached.

Morgan didn’t have much of a criminal record prior to this conviction, Driscoll said.

“It was surprising,” he said. “Typically in cases like this we see a lot more offenses.”

The suspect had only been convicted of a misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge as an adult.

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“This is an individual that was under the radar,” he said. “It wasn’t somebody who we knew because of a criminal past.”

Springfield police were able to tie Morgan to the crime because he shot his firearm during one of the rapes, Driscoll said.

“The officers on scene did a great job of recovering the casing and the projectile that was fired from the gun,” he said.

Investigators were able to match the casing to Morgan’s gun when he was pulled over for a traffic violation by Ohio State Highway Patrol, the prosecutor said.

Police also were led to Morgan when a woman reported he was following her, Driscoll said.

“For somebody like this, somebody who was increasingly growing more violent and more violent with each rape,” Driscoll said, “it was very important for us to get them off the streets.”

Morgan will also have to register as a Tier III sex offender for life.

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