By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A 33-year-old Hoover man is scheduled to appear in the Shelby County Courthouse for arraignment in September after he was indicted on several sex abuse and child abuse charges.

According to documents filed in Shelby County Circuit Court on Aug. 5, Jason Michael Hankins, who lists an address in the 2200 block of Avanti Lane in Hoover, has been indicted on two charges of sexual abuse of a child younger than 12, two charges of first-degree rape, two counts of sexual torture or abuse, one count of child abuse, one count of first-degree sodomy, one count of production of child pornography and one count of distributing pornography to a minor.

According to his indictments, which were returned during a January Shelby County grand jury session, Hankins allegedly “engaged in sexual intercourse” with a female victim younger than 12, “penetrated (the victim) with an inanimate object” and “willfully maltreated” the victim while the victim was in his care between July 2013 and November 2013.

He also allegedly produced pornography involving a minor, distributed pornography to a minor, engaged in “deviate sexual intercourse” and engaged in sexual contact with a victim younger than 12 between January 2013 and December 2013.

Haskins pleaded not guilty to the producing child pornography, distributing child pornography and sodomy charges in the Shelby County Circuit Court in May. He is scheduled to report to the Shelby County Courthouse for a status hearing on the pornography and sodomy charge on Nov. 11, according to court documents.

Hankins was arrested at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Dec. 13, 2013, after a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to a Westover residence to take a report of sexual abuse of a minor child. Sheriff’s investigators said in a previous report that there was a pre-existing family relationship between the victim and Hankins.

Hankins posted bond and was released from the Shelby County Jail before the U.S. Marshal’s Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Hankins again at his residence Dec. 18.