Late last week a Coffeyville man was sentenced to 154 months or almost 13 years for the 2019 alleged rape of a female victim, who at the time was 13. According to the Montgomery County Chronicle, 49-year-old David L. Hudnall agreed to a plea bargain in which the Montgomery County Attorney’s office agreed to lower the rape charge to attempted rape and a second charge of criminal sodomy was dropped.

The court-appointed attorney for Hudnall, Dan Reynolds, asked Judge Jeffery Gossard to lower the sentence due to his cooperation in the case. Citing that if Hudnall chose not to plead to the lesser charges, the victim would have been compelled to testify. While the assistant county attorney, Karen Miller, agreed with Reynolds, Judge Gossard nixed lowering the sentence, saying the standard sentence is appropriate, considering the amended complaint, and found no substantial reason to depart from the standard sentence.

The official wording of the criminal charge is “attempted rape by misrepresenting sexual intercourse as medically necessary.” The victim testified in a preliminary hearing in May 2021 that she was sent a text message by Hudnall. She testified that Hudnall’s text, in which he disguised himself as “Dr. Susan”, indicated that the victim should allow Hudnall to do what he wanted with her body or her privates would have to be surgically sewn shut. In the same hearing, the victim revealed that it wasn’t until Hudnall’s wife discovered her husband and the victim engaging in sex that he was forced to finally stop.
Law enforcement officers were made aware of the allegation and one day later after a search warrant was issued by the Coffeyville Police Department. That day officers found Hudnall hiding in the livestock barn at Walter Johnson Park. Hudnall was arrested and booked into the Montgomery County Corrections and he has been there ever since.