An Oxford County man has been sentenced in Rhode Island to serve 27 years in prison for sexually molesting three young girls in the city of Woonsocket there between 2005 and 2012 before moving to Maine.

David Girard, 35, of Dixfield, was arrested by Dixfield police on Nov. 5, 2012, as a fugitive from justice following his indictment by a Rhode Island grand jury on multiple counts of child molestation and has remained in custody since.

Girard was sentenced Wednesday by Rhode Island Superior Court Justice Netti Vogel to 60 years, with 33 years of that sentence suspended, with probation, according to the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office.

Girard pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree child molestation and three counts of second-degree child molestation as part of a plea deal rather than go to trial.

Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, said authorities were aware that Girard had moved from Woonsocket to Dixfield by the time of the indictment and did not have difficulty locating him.

“The defendant was living in the same residence as the three girls at the time of the molestation, but he is not related,” Kempe said on Thursday.

The girls were between the ages of 6 and 11 years at the time Girard molested them, the attorney general’s office.

After Girard serves his prison sentence at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institute, he will be subject to a lifetime registration as a sex offender and GPS monitoring.

Scott Dolan can be reached at 791-6304 or at:

sdolan@pressherald.com

Twitter: @scottddolan

Copy the Story Link