A Houston County judge sentenced a Texas man to 90 years in prison for molesting and sodomizing an 8-year-old girl in Dothan.
District Attorney Doug Valeska said the jury convicted Lemar Dennis Bell, 39, of Grapeland, Texas, of felony first-degree sodomy and felony sex abuse of a child under the age of 12.
The jury deliberated less than 30 minutes before returning the guilty verdicts in the trial, which started Monday, Valeska said.
Valeska also said Circuit Court Judge Brad Mendheim gave Bell a 70-year prison sentence for the first-degree sodomy charge, which carries a possible punishment of 10 to 99 years or life in prison as a class A felony crime. He said Bell also received a 20-year sentence for the sex abuse charge, which was ordered to run consecutively with the sodomy charge for a total of 90 years in prison.
Dothan police arrested Bell in May on the sexual assault charges.
Valeska said the victim and her mother flew in from Texas for her to testify in the trial.
“She got justice today,” Valeska said. “He stood up and apologized to the family afterward.”
Attorney Ben Freeman, who represented Bell in court, could not be reached for comment.
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