A Wheeling man who admitted to sexually assaulting a child between the ages of 7 and 12 has been sentenced to 25 to 100 years in prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. Sean Colvin pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault involving a child, and Ohio County Circuit Judge David Simms handed down the sentence this week.
Colvin was arrested in July following an investigation into the sexual abuse of a child, and according to case information reported by WTOV, he was known to the victim's family. The sentence handed down by Judge Simms falls squarely within the range set by West Virginia law: under West Virginia Code § 61-8B-3(c), an adult convicted of first-degree sexual assault against a victim under 12 faces a mandatory 25 to 100 years in a state correctional facility and a fine between $5,000 and $25,000.
A Sentence Shaped by Statute
That enhanced range is not the norm for most first-degree sexual assault cases in West Virginia. Standard convictions carry 15 to 35 years and a fine of $1,000 to $10,000, but the law escalates sharply once the victim is under 12, according to RAINN. Colvin's punishment reflects that statutory floor and ceiling exactly.
Colvin was already a registered sex offender before this case reached court. Federal court records filed in May 2024 show he had a prior conviction for third-degree sexual assault of a minor. Those same records describe a July 2022 incident in which Wheeling Police were dispatched to Lumber Avenue after Colvin got into a public verbal dispute with his father, Carl Dennis Colvin, at the Overbrook Avenue apartment the two shared — an encounter that surfaced in 2024 proceedings involving his father’s child pornography case.
Prosecutor Says Colvin Will Likely Die Behind Bars
Ohio County Prosecuting Attorney Shawn R. Turak said Colvin will likely remain incarcerated until his natural death, and added that the court proceedings may ease the healing process for the family involved. Turak took office after more than two decades in the Ohio County prosecutor's office, serving as Chief Assistant Prosecutor for the final 10 years and specializing in major felony cases including child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and murder; she has trained sexual assault nurse examiners and law enforcement officers across West Virginia and Ohio.
Some Ohio County Circuit Court cases involving felony sex offenses against minors have included supervised-release terms of 20 or 25 years, according to The Intelligencer.
Part of a Broader Local Push
Colvin's case lands amid a wider local effort to prosecute crimes against children. In February, Turak announced multiple sentencings for sexual offenders in Ohio County, emphasizing her office's commitment to aggressively pursuing cases involving vulnerable minor victims, the newspaper's report noted. Last October, the county secured its first-ever cold case conviction under West Virginia's Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, resolving a case 17 years after the offense occurred.
The pace of serious felony prosecutions in Ohio County has continued this fall. The September term of the Ohio County Circuit Court grand jury returned 25 indictments against 26 defendants on charges including kidnapping, second-degree sexual assault, and drug offenses — a reflection of the steady caseload moving through the courthouse under Turak's direction.
