AUBURN – An owner of a popular bar in Sabattus pleaded guilty Thursday to raping his daughter on two separate occasions.

Frank “Bill” Woodbury, the owner and manager of Mixers, was originally charged with three counts of gross sexual assault for raping his teenage daughter over a three-year period while she lived with him.

As part of a plea agreement, the state agreed to drop one of the counts in exchange for his guilty plea. Justice Thomas E. Delahanty II accepted the plea Thursday. Woodbury, 41, will be sentenced at a later date. Assistant District Attorney Deborah Potter Cashman said she plans to request that he get a total of eight years in prison, followed by six years of probation.

For Woodbury’s daughter, no amount of jail time seems sufficient.

The teen, now 17, gave the Sun Journal permission to identify her as Woodbury’s daughter and to include details of the case discussed in court.

“I think people have assumed that I made it all up,” she said after the hearing. “I know he’s well-liked in the area, but it did happen. It happened every night for three years.”

Woodbury’s bar is located in the Sabattus Mall on Route 126. He has owned it for about 10 years. His daughter, who no longer lives in the area, gripped her mother’s hand and cried as Cashman summarized the state’s case against him.

According to the prosecutor, the girl was 13 when she moved into Woodbuy’s home in Auburn, and the abuse started after she turned 14 in April 1999.

Woodury repeatedly gave his daughter alcohol until she was so drunk that she passed out, then he raped her, Cashman said. In July 1999, Cashman continued, the girl started to experience vaginal bleeding and she realized what was happening.

“(Woodbury) acknowledged what had happened but he told her that it was OK because he loved her,” Cashman said.

In December 1999, Cashman continued, Woodbury got his daughter pregnant and paid for her abortion. Even after that, Cashman said, he continued to force her to have sex, telling her that he loved her.

The abuse continued until January 2002, Cashman said. That is when Woodbury’s daughter told her mom, and they went to police with a tape of a cellular phone conversation during which Woodbury apologized to the girl for what he had been doing.

According to Cashman, Woodbury initially told police that he had been inappropriate with his daughter but he claimed that she was “unnaturally obsessed” with him.

lchmelecki@sunjournal.com