Man convicted of sexual abuse of minor

Wearing a pink sweater and clutching a stuffed bunny rabbit, the 7-year-old girl spoke in a quavering voice as she answered the prosecutor's questions. The man she knew as "Mr. Mike" had kissed and fondled her numerous times, she told the jury, when her baby sitter left them alone.

The second-grader wiggled in her chair and colored furiously with markers as she told how the man had warned her to not to tell anyone. She put her hand up as if blocking from view the white-haired man sitting at the defense table.

That man, Michael Phillip Hein Sr., 62, was convicted of the sexual abuse of a minor, a third-degree sex offense, and two counts of second-degree assault by an Anne Arundel County Circuit jury in Judge J. Michael Wachs' courtroom yesterday...