ALPENA — In an opinion written by the Michigan Court of Appeals, the court affirmed the trial court’s conviction of Presque County resident Thomas Pettit for multiple cases of sexual abuse against his daughter while she was under the age of 13, however, the court also vacated his sentence and remanded him for resentencing.

In the opinion, it is stated that in an interview with detectives, Pettit confessed to sexually assaulting his daughter approximately 20 times.

According to the victim during the trial, these molestations began when she was six, escalated when she was eight, and occurred two or three times a week until she required psychiatric hospitalization when she was 13 years old.

The victim testified that another incident of sexual abuse occurred when she was 15 during a visit by her father while she was in her mother’s custody. The victim disclosed the incident to Children’s Protective Services during an investigation into other allegations against Pettit.

On Sep. 30, 2021, in the Presque Isle Coounty’s 53rd Circuit Court, Pettit was found guilty by a jury of nine counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and one count of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree.

On Nov. 11, 2021, Pettit was sentenced to serve concurrent prison terms of 25 to 50 years for eight of the first-degree criminal sexual conduct convictions, and 10 to 15 years for the second-degree criminal sexual conduct conviction. Additionally, Pettit also had to serve a consecutive prison term of 25 to 50 years for one of the first-degree criminal sexual conduct convictions.

During his appeal, however, Pettit made several different arguments for appeal based on things like lack of qualification from some witnesses as well as an inability for him to properly face his accuser due to her testifying remotely during the trial.

The appeals court rejected most of Pettit’s arguments and ultimately rejected his call for appeal, however, the court did find that Pettit was entitled to resentencing due to ineffective counsel that led to his consecutive sentence.

Pettit received a consecutive sentence of 25 to 50 years because of testimony from the victim about her molestations at the hands of Pettit that the trial court interpreted as evidence that two crimes took place in “one transaction” thus meeting the requirements for Pettit to receive consecutive sentencing.

The appeals court found that once the entirety of the victim’s testimony was taken into context, the trial court’s interpretation was untenable.

The court found that Pettit’s defense counsel not catching this error and then erroneously claiming that the court had the discretion to impose consecutive sentencing during sentencing met the requirements for ineffective title and entitled Pettit to resentencing.