JEFFERSON COUNTY — After less than 20 minutes of deliberation on Thursday, a Jefferson County jury found a 51-year-old Mt. Vernon man is a “sexually violent person” and he was subsequently committed to a treatment and detention facility in Rushville.

Ernest L. Logsdon had been sentenced in 1998 to two consecutive 10-year prison sentences after he pleaded guilty to two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault for committing sexual acts with his 9-year-old stepdaughter and his 7-year-old son.

Logsdon had also been convicted in LaSalle County in 1986 of assaulting a 14-year-old girl and in 1991 of assaulting a 25-year-old woman in 1991.

As Logsdon was nearing the end of his prison sentence last fall he was ordered to undergo a pre-release evaluation which found cause to have him declared a sexually violent person and to have him civilly committed. That led to this week’s trial in Jefferson County.

Prosecution experts testified Logsdon is attracted to non-consensual sex and/or children while the defense expert claimed hyper-sexuality was a more accurate description.

They concluded Logsdon is nearly four times more likely than the average sex offender to commit another sex crime.