Aug. 22 – GOSHEN – An emotional sentencing took place in Elkhart County District Court 3 as a man accused of molesting a girl was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the crime.
Ren A. Crider, 25, of Goshen, was charged with a total of eight counts of child abuse, three of which are Level 1 felonies because he was over 21 at the time, and four of which are Level 3 felonies because he was under 21. Crider pleaded guilty to the three Level 1 charges and one of the Level 3 charges on July 26.
According to the affidavit of probable cause in the case, on March 1, 2023, Goshen police received a report alleging that a 16-year-old Kentucky girl had been sexually abused when she was 13.
The girl confided to her mother that the sexual assaults had been happening since she was 7 years old. During an interview, the teen explained that she visited Goshen during summer vacation in 2020 and was romantically involved with Crider. She stayed for most of the summer and told the interviewer that Crider often forced himself on her during that time.
Her mother reportedly came to Indiana to inform the person her daughter was staying with about the abuse. He was confronted and told her that some things had happened, but not all of them.
When police met with Crider, he told them the same thing. He claimed she had forced herself on him three times, but he told the victim not to tell anyone and denied her story. He also claimed the incidents happened the following year, making her a year older, but SnapChat photos of the victim showed her in Goshen in 2020, not 2021.
“You may lie to everyone, but only you and I know the whole truth,” the victim said during Crider’s sentencing.
Crider was sentenced under a plea agreement to count 1, child abuse, defendant being at least 21 years of age, a Level 1 felony, to 30 years in prison with 25 years to be served in the Indiana Department of Corrections and five years probation; count 2, child abuse, defendant being at least 21 years of age, a Level 1 felony, to 30 years probation with five years of reporting required, to be served consecutively after count 1; count 3, child abuse, defendant being at least 21 years of age, a Level 1 felony, to 30 years in prison with 25 years to be served in the Indiana Department of Corrections and five years probation to be served concurrently after count 1; and count 4, child abuse, a Level 3 felony, to nine years concurrently in the Indiana Department of Corrections.
ADAM D. RIFENBURG
A man was sentenced to a total of 13 years in prison for dealing meth during a trial in Elkhart County Superior Court 3 on Thursday.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, police stopped Adam D. Rifenburg, 45, on August 17, 2023, at West Pike Street and North Riverside Boulevard in Goshen for not wearing a seat belt.
Rifenburg appeared nervous and began to make rapid head movements. After a short time, Rifenburg’s passenger was able to find the license plate of the vehicle. A K-9 conducted an open-air sniff and police found a blue bag on the ground containing a matchbox with two plastic bags of meth inside.
In the trunk they found a computer bag with a padlock on it and when the police asked him who it belonged to he said he didn’t know. Inside the bag were two albuterol inhalers and paraphernalia, a cardboard box of meth, THC gummies, THC chocolate, marijuana in multiple bags, two additional bags of meth, glass pipes, a ledger and pills.
Rifenburg’s passenger claimed that she had only recently met him and that he was driving her home, and claimed that the drugs in the bag were not hers. She claimed that when he realized he was being pulled over, he took the matchbook out of his pocket and gave it to her, and she put it in her bag. She also claimed that Rifenburg regularly carried the computer bag with him and that she knew he was selling drugs. She said that she asked him if he had any before she got in the car because she did not want to ride with him if he did.
Police also contacted the owner of the vehicle, who was Rifenburg’s girlfriend. The woman told police that Rifenburg, while not asthmatic, had had breathing problems in the past and used an inhaler, even though he didn’t have a prescription. He told police that the inhaler in the driver’s door was his, but not the one in the bag in the trunk, and that he hadn’t been in the truck all day.
When police searched him, they found a large amount of cash on him, but police noted that Rifenburg had said earlier in the conversation that he did not have a job. Rifenburg said the money was all the money in his name.
Rifenburg was sentenced by plea agreement to meth dealing, a Level 2 felony, to 13 years with eight to be served in the Indiana Department of Corrections and five to be served on probation. Charge 2, possession of marijuana, a Class B misdemeanor, was dropped.
Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.
