By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A Shelby County grand jury will decide in the coming weeks if it will uphold a trio of sexual abuse charges brought against a 40-year-old Alabaster man by the city’s police department.

On Dec. 3, Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves bound three felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse against Alabaster resident James Michael Hooie over to a grand jury to consider “at its next available session.”

Because Hooie has been incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail since his 2014 arrest, Reeves ordered an expedited grand jury hearing on the matter.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Hooie on Dec. 14, 2014, and charged him with three felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse.

The charges came after Hooie allegedly molested an underage female victim multiple times between 2012 and Dec. 11, 2014, according to his arrest warrants.

According to Shelby County Jail records, Hooie was released from jail on bonds totaling $15,000 the same day he was arrested. However, he was booked back into the jail on Dec. 18, 2014, after the person who posted Hooie’s original bond surrendered him back to the jail.

Hooie has remained in the Shelby County Jail on bonds totaling $15,000 since Dec. 18, 2014.

First-degree sexual abuse is a Class C felony, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison upon conviction.