CENTERVILLE — A former Waynesville police officer convicted of rape will spend more than a decade in prison.
Peyton Kocevar, 24, of Centerville was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He will also have to register as a Tier III sex offender for the rest of his life, according to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.
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Earlier this month in a retrial, Kocevar was found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition from an investigation that began in 2020.
News Center 7 previously reported that Kocevar was found guilty of one count of rape and not guilty of four other counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition in December.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on two counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition during the December trial, which lead to a retrial that began last month.
Kocevar was indicted in June 2020 by a Montgomery County grand jury on seven counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition, officials said.
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According to court records, the alleged crimes occurred while Kocevar was a student at Alter High school between 2012 and 2016. Prosecutors allege he raped multiple victims during this time.
Defense lawyers argued that Kocevar did not rape the women.
“This is not a case of rape. This is not a case of gross sexual imposition, this is not a case of a monster attacking six different people. It’s a case of teens going to an apartment, a party on-going, people go into bedrooms, various things happen,” Jon Paul Rion, the attorney for Kocevar, said in December.