YOUNGSTOWN — The gross sexual imposition trial of Thomas B. Spencer, 42, was over in one day, with the jury finding him guilty late Wednesday on both charges after hearing opening statements in the morning and testimony throughout the day.

The jury was selected Tuesday in the courtroom of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney. Spencer could get several years in prison when he is sentenced later.

Among the first witnesses was the victim, a young girl, who held onto her stuffed animal as she sat in a witness chair not intended for someone so small.

She testified that she and her older brother were alone in the yard of their Boardman home with Spencer while a bonfire was burning. Her mother and Spencer’s girlfriend, Amanda Mull, were in the house “going to the bathroom,” she said.

Under questioning by Kevin Day, assistant county prosecutor, she said the bonfire was in March of 2023 and it was the second time “Tommy” had been to their house.

“When you were outside, did Tommy do something to you?”

“Yep,” she said.

“What did he do?” Day asked.

“He touched me inappropriately,” she said.

She went on to say that Spencer touched her in her private areas in the back and front.

Day asked what Spencer did when he touched her.

“He said I was cute,” she said.

Did he tell you not to tell anybody about that?”

“Yep,” she said.

She said her mother and Mull were in the house for about 10 minutes.

Day asked if it is correct that she told her mother about the incident a couple of months later, and she agreed. She also agreed when Day asked if that was when the girl saw Spencer’s clothes in her mother’s car and was concerned that Spencer was moving in with them.

The girl’s older brother also testified, saying that at one point, he went into an area near his home to get firewood and his sister and Spencer were near the fire.

Day asked him if he saw “Tommy” do something to his sister, and he said yes he saw him touching her in a private place for a couple of seconds. He did not tell his mother about it and did not say anything to Spencer, he said.

Amanda Mull, who was Spencer’s girlfriend at the time of the episode, testified that Spencer is now her ex-boyfriend. She also used to be a friend of the girl’s mother, she said. She had dated Spencer for about a month at the time of the incident.

She said she and the girl’s mother were in the house about 15 or 20 minutes that night to get food for the kids and use the restroom.

The girl’s mother testified that when she went back outside after being in the house, she found her daughter being quiet, which was unusual for her.

“Around Mr. Spencer, she really didn’t want to communicate too much,” she said.

“She’s usually bubbly. She never wants to be quiet,” the woman said. “She always wants to tell you something.”

Mull and Spencer stayed over at the family’s home that night, but that was not a real common thing, maybe five times, she said. The adults were drinking that night, she agreed.

Her son has autism, she agreed under questioning.

The girl told her about Spencer touching her a couple months later after seeing Spencer’s clothes in the family’s car and fearing that Spencer was moving in, she testified. She went to the Boardman Police Department and spoke with an officer and later took the child to the Child Advocacy Center, where she spoke to a Boardman detective, she said.

Spencer has been in the Mahoning County jail since February, according to jail records.