BOWLING GREEN — A former member of the Wood County Fair Board received a maximum 17-year prison term Thursday from a Wood County judge for sexually preying on several 4-H participants.
Before pronouncing his sentence for Brock Abke, 31, of Troy Township, common pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman said, “we’re probably very lucky” that victims reported the abuse before “the level of engagement with these victims increased to something physical.”
Rather than being invisible people on the internet, the victims Abke plied with money, vapes, and alcohol were youth he met through his position of authority with the fair board and specifically targeted by building trust with them before persuading them to send him nude photographs, the judge said, citing a pre-sentencing report…