A handful of notable local criminal cases, some involving IU students and staff, are working their way through the court system. We’ve compiled updates on a handful of them below.
Guoping Wang
Former IU Jacobs School of Music instructor Guoping Wang was charged July 2016 with sexual battery and criminal confinement in connection with a 2015 assault of an IU ballet student.
Wang allegedly brought the student into his office to practice stretches. He began to kiss her, and she pushed him away.
She stood to leave, but Wang closed the door and blocked her from exiting. He then allegedly sexually assaulted her with his hands before a noise distracted him, and the student ran away.
Wang entered a plea of not guilty in July 2016 and was released on bond, but online court records show he will have a change of plea hearing at 9 a.m. Oct. 11.
Brittany Sater murder trial
Three people were charged with the 2016 burglary, robbery and murder of Bloomington resident Brittany Sater. Johnny T. Moore, one of the three alleged co-conspirators, was tried and convicted of all charges in April.
All witnesses to the shooting of Sater, including Sater herself in a video taken before her death, agree Moore was never in her house when Sater was shot. The other two alleged co-conspirators, Billie Jean “BJ” Edison and Dennis Webb, were allegedly in Sater’s home attempting to rob her when Webb shot her, according to court testimony.
The prosecution argued Moore, who supplied drugs to Sater, orchestrated the robbery and murder. The jury agreed, and he was sentenced to 77 years in prison in May. He has since filed an appeal.
The other two alleged co-conspirators, Edison and Webb, both initially entered pleas of not guilty. However, Edison is scheduled to have a change of plea hearing at 11 a.m. Oct. 4.
Webb pleaded guilty to murder and robbery in July as a part of a plea deal. He will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 31.
Whisper
Four men, including two IU students and one IU graduate, were arrested in February on charges of child molestation after allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old girl they met on the social media app, “Whisper.”
Police evidence suggests they knew she was underage.
Matthew Filipek and George Pearcy were IU students at the time of their arrests. Thomas Snape graduated from the IU Kelley School of Business in 2015 with a degree in accounting, according to his LinkedIn page.
Filipek entered a plea of not guilty in February. He is scheduled to appear in court at 3:15 p.m. Oct. 10 for a pretrial conference, a proceeding where the defense and prosecution update the court on the status of the case.
Pearcy also entered a plea of not guilty in February. He is scheduled to appear in court at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 11 for a pretrial conference.
Snape also entered a plea of not guilty in February. He was scheduled to appear in court at 2 p.m. Aug. 15 for a pretrial conference.
James McGovern
James McGovern, an IU student at the time of his arrest, was charged with the rape and criminal confinement of another IU student in February after he met up with her at a bar downtown and brought her back to his apartment.
He has entered a plea of not guilty and was released on bond. He is scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 12 for a pretrial conference, a proceeding where the defense and prosecution update the court on the status of the case.
Daniel Messel
The man convicted of murdering IU student Hannah Wilson was charged with a 2012 rape in the fall of 2016 after he was linked to the case by DNA evidence.
Daniel Messel had begun serving his 80 year sentence for Wilson’s murder when he was charged with rape. He tried unsuccessfully in 2017 to appeal his murder conviction.
The prosecution for the rape charge said during a pretrial conference Tuesday that the case will need to go to trial. Messel’s attorney, Patrick Schrems, said he will seek a change of venue for the trial. Schrems said the request will be made formally during Messel's next court appearance scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Oct 10.
In the 2012 case, a student reported that a man she did not know offered her a ride after she had been out drinking, according to the probable cause affidavit. He drove her to a secluded parking spot in the woods near Griffy Lake, where he forced his penis into her mouth.
She tried to fight him off, and he hit her so hard it “knocked the contact out of her eye and she was spitting blood,” according to the affidavit.
The man drove away, and the student found help from residents nearby. The woman’s underwear was found at the scene the next day.
After reading a news story about the Wilson case, the 2012 victim felt her case was “eerily similar” and called the IU Police Department to say she believed Messel might be her attacker.
DNA collected in 2012 from under her fingernails was compared to Messel’s, and the samples matched. Messel was charged in 2016 with the rape a few months after his conviction for Wilson’s murder.
