Police chief convicted of sex charges

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A small town police chief who was the only survivor of a 1991 sniper rampage that killed four people has been convicted of sex offenses involving a 9-year-old girl.

Russell Borts, 39, the police chief of Jamestown in mid-Missouri, was convicted Wednesday of statutory sodomy and attempted child molestation. The case was moved from Moniteau County to Boone County on a change of venue.

The girl was Borts' stepdaughter when the crime occurred in March 2001, prosecutors said.

Circuit Judge Frank Conley set sentencing for July 2. Jurors recommended a combined sentence of 32 years.

Borts was a Moniteau County sheriff's deputy in December 1991 when he was seriously wounded in a sniper rampage by James Johnson. Convicted in the murders that night of the Moniteau County sheriff's wife, another sheriff and two deputies, Johnson was executed by lethal injection Jan. 9 at Potosi Correctional Center.

"It's a sad thing that he's a former cop," said Pettis County prosecutor Jeff Mittelhouser, who acted as a special prosecutor. "But we can't tell what kind of person someone is by the uniform they wear."

Defense attorney Chris Slusher told jurors that the girl manipulated an incident of nonsexual contact in an effort to force a change in custody from her mother to her biological father.

Borts had been on leave from his position at Jamestown, where he was the only officer.