The victim was only 18 when she started a new job at a Merrillville Cracker Barrel in August 2020, her biological grandmother told a courtroom Thursday.
Almost immediately, Danny Allen, Sr., now 62, of Gary and formerly Portage, took an interest in her. Other than their ages, the girl had developmental disabilities with an IQ of a preteen, the woman said.
When she drove to pick the girl up, Allen had his arm around her, the grandmother said. He claimed he was her friend and would take care of her. Later on, there were phone calls. A woman at their church called to say she saw the girl talking to an “older man” in a vehicle in the parking lot.
She should have called the cops then, the grandmother, who adopted the girl as a newborn, later said. Allen claimed he wanted the girl to be friends with his teen daughter. Then, the girl started going to work earlier, or staying later.
Her personality started to change, as she grew more moody — “yelling,” “screaming,” and “crying” on the phone at 3 a.m.
“You’ve got to be my friend,” she recalled the girl saying.
At work, co-workers noticed she only started listening to Allen.
“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on,” the grandmother told her. The girl was scared she “wouldn’t love her” anymore.
She found out that Allen started a sexual relationship with the girl.
Allen crossed an unconscionable line, the grandmother said. Their lives had been completely upended with therapy and court dates. She wanted to know why, an answer she would probably never get.
Allen was formally charged in May 2021 with two counts of rape, Level 3 felonies, and sexual battery, a Level 6 felony. The woman, then 19, told police that Allen would drive her to a parking lot or hotel nearby the restaurant for sex, which she didn’t want, the affidavit states.
He signed a plea deal June 28 for sexual battery and criminal confinement. Under the deal, he was sentenced to 5 years on sex offender probation. He will have to register as a sex offender.
“I didn’t want him to get in trouble,” the young woman, now in her 20s, said earlier on the stand Thursday. “This has traumatized my entire family.”
“I do not want this to happen ever again,” she said. “I wish he would get a worse sentence, but (I am) happy he won’t hurt anyone else.”
Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Arnold said the plea was designed to spare the victim further trauma so she didn’t have to testify in court. If he failed probation, he would be sent to prison.
Defense lawyer Patrick Young said Allen “didn’t intend any harm,” but would have a tough go on sex offender probation. Allen was a 22-year U.S. Army veteran, he said. He now understood what he did was “wrong” and illegal, Young said.
“Now he understands?” Judge Samuel Cappas asked.
He “believed he was in a relationship” with the young woman, the lawyer said.
In court, Allen said he made a “very terrible mistake.”
Cappas told Allen what he did was the “equivalent of a child molesting.”
He “groomed,” “manipulated,” and “had sex with her.”
She didn’t have the ability to recognize what was happening and consent like an adult.
“Clearly, you’re a sexual predator,” Cappas said. She was “basically a kid, a child.”
“It was horrendous that you did this,” the judge said. “You’re lucky you didn’t get convicted of this rape.”
After the woman started at the restaurant in August 2020, Allen claimed to the grandmother he would “take care of her” because he knew she had intellectual disabilities, charges state.
About a month or two later, the grandmother got a phone call, saying her daughter was spotted in a church parking lot kissing a man, documents allege. The woman called Allen and warned him to stay away from her daughter, it said.
By January, Allen asked her to start coming in an hour early for sex, before she started her 4-hour restaurant shift, documents state.
A co-worker called Allen her “pretend husband,” knowing him there for several years, thinking he was “harmless.” However, she became worried at the attention he was paying the girl, and started to gain the victim’s trust, while encouraging her to open up about what happened, it said.
In early March 2021, the victim started crying and her grandmother asked her what was wrong, when she learned of the multiple sexual assaults, the affidavit states.
A former restaurant manager told police he put Allen on a “final written warning” for trying to kiss another employee on the cheek. An internal sexual harassment investigation found that complaint credible, he said.