Mississippi 16th Circuit Judge Lee Coleman sentenced former Mississippi State University professor Yoginder Dandass to 20 years in prison after an Oktibbeha County jury found him guilty of sexual battery Friday.
Dandass was accused of sexual battery against his adopted Russian daughter. His sentence also includes five years of post-release supervision and a $3,000 fine. He’s also required to sign up on the sex offender registry after his release.
Jurors returned the verdict after about two hours of deliberation.
Matt Wilson, who represented Dandass during the trial, said he would challenge the decision.
“We will pursue whatever appeal we feel that we can,” Wilson said. “We respect the verdict of the jury. We respect the verdict of the judge. We respect the decorum of the court. With that, we’ll say no more.”
Assistant District Attorney Katie Moulds presented the state’s case during the week. After the trial, she said she was happy with the outcome. She said she was especially happy for the victim, who she’s worked with in the case since 2013.
“This was important to her,” Moulds said. “That’s why we do what we do at all — to speak for those who don’t have a voice for themselves. She’s pleased with the outcome. She was pleased to have the opportunity to tell what happened to her. I’m so proud of her and so proud to know her, and so thankful that this process has been completed thus far for her.”
Dandass was charged with sexual battery in July 2013; however, the victim testified that the abuse lasted from when she was 11 to when she was 17 years old.
Wilson, in his closing argument, pointed to what he said were inconsistencies in the victim’s testimony. He noted that she mentioned telling some friends in her statements, but not in others. That, Wilson said, pointed to what he’d told jurors during opening statements — the victim was lying about Dandass’ actions, he said.
“In the final analysis, this is about a girl who wanted to go to art school,” Wilson said. “She didn’t think her father would let her, so she made up the most malicious form of slander in order to get her way, which she has. And since she really didn’t care about her family, since she really never connected with her family, it really didn’t matter to her because she had nothing to lose.
“But … she’s changed her story so much that it’s now caught up with her,” he continued. “As a father of two children, I would never want a child to suffer sexual abuse. But as we all agreed during voir dire, teenagers have been known to lie. Based upon the evidence, this is such a case.”
Wilson also said the state failed to prove that the alleged sexual abuse ever happened. Dandass took to the stand to deny the allegations himself earlier in the trial.
Moulds, in her final statement, told jurors that a lack of eyewitnesses, as only Dandass and the victim were there for the abuse, didn’t mean the victim provided poor evidence.
“He’s asking you to discredit what she’s telling you because she was the only person there,” Moulds said. “This kind of stuff doesn’t happen on aisle 13 at Wal-Mart. It doesn’t happen when other people are around. If you want to be good at a crime, you don’t do it in front of a lot of other people. You don’t do it where other people can see. And if you’ve got to have somebody else there … you pick the Russian girl who came here at 9 (years old), who speaks no English, who doesn’t know any better. You pick the vulnerable little girl that you can control.”
Moulds also said there was no point for the victim to lie, as Wilson accused.
“Had (the victim) wanted to stop this train, had she wanted to make all this up so she could get out of her parents’ house, she’s out of the house now. She is at the school that she wanted to go to. She could have, at any time, said ‘I made it up.’ I couldn’t have done this without here. I couldn’t have had testimony about what happened to her without having her here.”
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