A man accused of raping girls and knowingly exposing them to HIV faces new charges after a 10TV investigation.
Keith Anthony Allen, who is HIV-positive, was charged last month with sexually assaulting two 12-year-olds and a 14-year-old.
But 10TV uncovered a prior accusation against Allen that police admit they allowed to fall through the cracks.
The mother of a previous 14-year-old victim said Allen was dating a family member at the time when her daughter reported him for sexually assaulting her in 2013.
"It was rough. Tore our family apart,” she said. “I reported it (to police.) I wanted him to pay for what he did to my daughter. He needs to pay.”
Columbus Police investigated and charged Allen with sexual imposition, a misdemeanor.
But further investigation revealed more serious, felony charges were warranted.
That's when this case got lost.
"We made an error at that point,” Columbus Police Sgt. Rich Weiner said, “It should have made it over to the prosecutor's office for felony charges and it didn't."
It would be another two years before the girl and her mother would hear Allen's name again, when three new girls would come forward to accuse him.
This time, Allen was HIV-positive, and one of the girls was pregnant.
"All this could have been prevented,” the mother of Allen’s 2013 accuser said. "If it would have been taken care of back in 2013, nobody else would be going through what we went through. He wouldn't be on the streets to do anything to anybody else."
Sgt. Weiner said questions raised by 10TV led the Division of Police to discover the case against Allen was never prosecuted.
"This is a tragedy and it never should have happened,” he said in an April interview. “And for that, we're trying to rectify that and make the process as smooth as it can be from this point out."
Within a week of that interview, police reactivated the 2013 case against Allen and forwarded it to prosecutors.
A Grand Jury returned a felony indictment against Allen, charging him with rape and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor on May 15.
"It can give us closure that he didn't get away with it, finally," the mother of Allen’s 2013 accuser said.
Though it wasn't in time to prevent others from being hurt, she hopes the indictment can be the first step in helping her daughter heal.
Allen is being held at the Franklin County Jail on $1 million bond. He heads back to court on these new charges Wednesday.
Family members tell 10TV so far, all of Allen's accusers have tested negative for HIV.
Columbus Police are conducting an internal investigation into how the 2013 case was handled.