(NASHVILLE) - 60-year-old Robert Eastwood was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting a girl at daycare.
Federal authorities arrested Eastwood last year. They found him in a hidden compartment he had built in a house in Crawford County, Ill. He had been on the lam from Brown County since January 2004, when a judge issued a warrant for his arrest on allegations that he repeatedly molested a 5-year-old girl under the supervision of his wife's daycare on Grandma Barnes Road in 2002 and 2003.
He was charged with child molesting, a Class A felony, child molesting, a Class C felony and fondling in the presence of a minor, a Class D felony.
Prosecutor Jim Oliver argued that Eastwood deserved a 30-year punishment because of the multiple offenses he committed against a child so young, and because his flight from prosecution left the victim - now 14 - living in fear for nearly eight years.
Public defender Andrew Szakaly, said his client didn't commit the crime. He said his client did not trust the justice system; that is why he did not turn himself in.
Szakaly asked the judge to consider the impact the sentence would have on Eastwood's family. The attorney called any lengthy prison term a death sentence because of his client's heart condition.
His attorney asked for a post-conviction bond while the case goes through the appeal process, but the judge denied the request. Eastwood was remanded back into the custody of the sheriff's department.
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