CORY WAHLBORG The jury trial of Cory Wahlborg, 22, was finished almost entirely before it got started. After two days of the jury selection process, prospective panelists were sent home on the news that Wahlborg had entered a plea.

According to Mariposa County District Attorney Bob Brown, Wahlborg pleaded no contest to the charges stemming from a July 9 sexual assault of two girls, ages 12 and 14. Wahlborg and his co-defendant, Timothy Johnson, 21, were arrested the day after the attack.

Through investigation, Mariposa County detectives learned that Johnson and Wahlborg had provided the girls with alcohol and then sexually assaulted them in the bathroom in the Mariposa Art Park, just feet away from Highway 140.

Wahlborg was originally charged with lewd acts with a child 10 years younger than himself, rape by intoxication and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. With the plea deal, he will spend six years in state prison and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He has not yet been formally sentenced.

Johnson had previously reached a deal with prosecutors that garnered him a similar sentence. A third suspect in the case, Ryan Barnett, was not implicated in the actual assault of the girls and reached a deal that puts him in county jail for one year.

Since the assault, the Mariposa County Public Works Department has changed the management of the restroom. They are now being locked in the evenings. For evening events, a key for the facilities can be checked out from the county.

The change appears to be making a difference. There have not been any significant vandalism incidents in the area since the change in procedure.

At the time of the assault, Sheriff Brian Muller said it heightened his worry about the area and the youngsters who frequent it. “This really reinforces the concerns that law enforcement has had with the art park,” Muller said in July. “It’s difficult to patrol. It’s really easy for kids to bounce from one area to another.”

Muller said that while the assault was shocking, he didn’t think that use of the rest room for illicit activity was all that unusual. “I get the impression this is a common practice of the kids,” Muller said of the sexual activity in the public rest room.