THOMASVILLE — A jury deliberated less than an hour Thursday afternoon before finding a defendant guilty of molesting five minor girls and raping another.

The 10-woman, two-man jury found Richard Colvin, 43, guilty of five counts of child molestation and one count of rape after 2 1/2 days of testimony.

Colvin, until Thursday a Five Forks Road, Boston, resident, is to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, in the third-floor courtroom at the Thomas County Courthouse. Until then, Colvin will be held in the Thomas County Jail.

Victims, family members and friends filled a bench in the courtroom when word came that a verdict had been reached. They held hands awaiting the verdict and cried softly after its delivery.

“I’m just glad he got what he deserved,” the mother of some of the victims said.

One victim said she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. Others said Colvin will not be able to hurt other children.

Colvin and his lawyer, John Forehand of Moultrie, stood before Thomas County Superior Court Judge Harry Jay Altman and Clerk of Court David Hutchings as Hutchings read the verdict about 3:20 p.m.

The defendant showed no emotion. Upon instruction by a Thomas County Sheriff’s Department deputy, Colvin emptied his pants pockets and placed his hands behind him. The deputy handcuffed Colvin and led him from the courtroom.

“I felt like the children who testified carried the day,” said Ray Auman, Southern Judicial Circuit assistant district attorney.

Auman, who prosecuted the case, lauded Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Agent Sean Edgar and Pascal Autrey, a sheriff’s department investigator, for their work.

“This was a case based on the credibility of the witnesses,” Auman said. “They believed the girls, because the girls were telling the truth.”

The maximum penalty for a child molestation conviction is one to 10 years. A rape conviction carries a mandatory sentence of 10 years. A life sentence is possible in a rape conviction.

Colvin, the defense’s only witness, testified Thursday morning.

He told Forehand the rape victim “came to me upset.” He purchased a pregnancy test for her. Test results were positive. The fetus was aborted.

One Wednesday, the rape victim told jurors Colvin impregnated her. The defendant blamed the pregnancy on the victim’s boyfriend, who she had been restricted from seeing for three months. The aborted fetus was three to four weeks old.

Colvin told Auman he hasn’t seen the victims in two years.

“These allegations were made two years ago, sir. They weren’t made yesterday,” Auman told him.

The assistant district attorney reminded the defendant that he said people saw him in pleasant circumstances with the victims in a Thomas County town.

“Where are they now?” Auman asked Colvin. “Some of them are outside that door,” Colvin said in reference to the courtroom lobby. “One of them is in this courtroom.”

“They haven’t been up there, have they?” Auman asked, referring to the witness stand. “Not yet,” Colvin told him.

Colvin denied he took the GBI agent aside at the jail and tried to stop the investigation. He also denied hitting the rape victim with his fist if she resisted his advances.

“You got the pregnancy test, because you knew you were the father of this child,” Auman told Colvin. “No, I didn’t,” the defendant responded.

“I never had sex with her,” the defendant told the assistant district attorney. “I never touched her.” The victims, he said, are lying.

Noting Colvin’s “calm and collected” demeanor on the witness stand, Auman pointed out the emotional trauma exhibited by the victims during their testimony.