Law enforcement officials establish security inside the Union County Common Pleas Courtroom on Monday following the sentencing of Alan Buckland. While Buckland held a final discussion with defense attorney Jeffery Blosser, deputies worked to allow victims to leave before Buckland’s supporters.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Mac Cordell)
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A Richwood man will spend at least 34 years, and possibly the rest of his life, in prison.
Alan Buckland, 38, of 30100 Alder Rd., Richwood, was sentenced Wednesday to 34 years to life in prison. Friday, Buckland pleaded guilty to three counts of rape as a sexually violent predator and two counts of felonious assault as a sexually violent predator and with a sexual motivation. The 34 years to life sentence represented a prison term for each of the five victims included in the charges.
“The fact that we were able to get justice for all five of these victims is important,” said Union County Prosecutor Dave Phillips.
In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped more than two dozen charges including multiple counts of rape, kidnapping, felonious assault and one count of attempted rape.
Phillips said he discussed the resolution with the victims who were all satisfied with the outcome. Phillips said his office and court personnel understood the emotional toll a trial could have on the victims. He said that even the trial preparations took an emotional and physical strain on the victims.
Defense attorney Jeffery Blosser acknowledged that a trial would have been “jarring” to the victims.
Two of Buckland’s victims spoke during Monday’s hearing, sharing with Common Pleas Court Judge Don Fraser the impact of their experience.
“I would love to say ‘Now I can let go. Now I can move on.’ But how do you let go when society triggers you every day,” the victim asked, noting that songs, movies and television shows remind her of Buckland, that she sees his face in many of the men she meets, that she is ashamed and afraid to take a shower.
She said she hopes that somehow she can “magically find a way to let go and move forward.”
The victim said she often thinks of the women who never came forward for a variety of reasons. She said Buckland “doesn’t have to answer for them.”
“Hopefully, the last woman he hurt will be the last woman he hurts,” the first victim to testify said.
A second victim offered a similar thought.
She said she used to be proud of her body and work to take care of it. Now, she said she “hates” her body. She said she is also traumatized by many things that bring others joy because they remind her of the way Buckland would use them to abuse her.
“I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to end my life,” the victim said.
“What’s truly been the hardest is living,” she said.
She detailed how Buckland would “brutally” sodomize her as a punishment.
The victim explained that for a long time she wanted nothing to do with physical intimacy. She said she eventually found a man she learned to trust. She said that one evening he was tired but running errands late so he could drive to Marysville to sit with her during one of Buckland’s court hearings when he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed his vehicle and was killed.
“I lost my husband because he was protecting me,” she told the court, juxtaposing it against the way Buckland used and manipulated her.
The victim said she was glad there would be no trial because she dreaded putting her family through the details of her experience.
She said she would leave the courtroom and file for custody of her three children that were taken while she was with Buckland.
Even so the woman said she wanted Buckland to know she forgives him. She said she needs to forgive him so she can move on. She said it was her faith and strength that allowed her to endure the abuse.
Buckland apologized to the women and their families gathered in the courtroom.
“I never intended to hurt anyone,” Buckland said. “I pray and hope the best for everyone.”
He asked Fraser to “please have mercy on me.”
Assistant Union County Prosecutor Andrew Bigler said the abuse included at least five women “over a span of months.”
“That’s far from everything that could have been brought,” Bigler said, explaining to the judge that in addition to other unknown victims, there were known victims who did not want to cooperate with prosecutors.
Bigler said Buckland recorded many of the rapes and assaults. He said during the abuse he would look at the camera and smile.
“He knew exactly what he was doing,” Bigler told the judge.
He said several law enforcement officials and attorneys viewed the videos.
“Each said it was the single worst thing they have had to look at in their career,” Bigler said.
He explained Buckland would reach out to many women with sexually explicit texts. Even so, he said the texts did not “give them proper warning.”
Bigler said Buckland’s actions “put each and every woman in danger of losing their life.”
He said the abuse was “systemic and for his own enjoyment and his own sexual gratification.” The assistant prosecutor said he has no doubt that if given the chance Buckland would return to the same behavior.
Phillips said members of the grand jury included the specification that Buckland be considered a sexually violent predator, “because they found him likely to reoffend.”
Buckland was arrested in December of 2021 after one of the victims saw a video he had taken while she was unconscious. Court documents detail a level of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Buckland would choke the women causing them to go unconscious. He would sodomize, beat and sexually abuse the women. Court documents detail that the women would wake up covered in blood, bruised even with internal injuries.
Prosecutors said some of the encounters started as part of a consensual relationship but turned violent.
If Buckland is ever released from prison, he will need to register as a sexual predator every 90 days for the rest of his life.