Charges including rape of a child were bound over during a preliminary hearing held Wednesday at the Warren County Courthouse.

The charges stem from the case against James R. Owen, 21, Pittsfield.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, a female alleged victim reported Owen assaulting her “more times than she can remember” between 2015 and 2019, starting before she was 10 years old, at a Barton Run Road residence.

At the Warren County Children’s Advocacy Center, she said, “bad things happen there,” during a forensic interview, the affidavit states.

She was the sole testifier during the preliminary hearing held before District Judge Todd Woodin.

She told the court that the incident occurred in Owen’s bedroom when he “started to touch me in places I didn’t like.”

She then proceeded to detail the alleged assault which stopped when “his mother called for him.”

Owen’s counsel, Bernard T. Hessley, asked about her disclosure of the alleged assault.

She testified that she was unable to seek help immediately because Owen “threatened to do the same to my brother.”

Hessley asked if after for years she is accurately remembering what occurred.

Her concise reply?

“Yes.”

Hessley argued that the conduct described — which was testified to in generalities, to some degree — didn’t constitute rape, indecent assault or involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

“I don’t know if we were in two separate hearings, “Assistant District Attorney Casey Strickland countered.

She acknowledged that there was not testimony to support two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse — which require oral or anal contact.

Woodin agreed to dismiss those two counts but the remaining charges — rape – forcible compulsion, two counts of aggravated indecent assault and two counts of indecent assault — were upheld.

The burden of proof at a preliminary hearing is a prima facia case — the Commonwealth must prove that a crime was committed and that the accused was likely the one who committed the crime.

Woodin ruled that there was testimony regarding her “private area (that) would indicate penetration, however slight.”