May 7 (UPI) — Former Kentucky judge Tim Nolan was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday for human trafficking after he forced or coerced multiple women, some of them minors, into performing sex acts.
Nolan, 72, pleaded guilty in February to charges of human trafficking and unlawful transactions with a minor. During a sentencing hearing on Friday in Newport, Ky., Assistant Attorney General Barbara Whaley read letters from 19 of Nolan’s victims before Judge Kathleen Lape handed down the sentence.
“Tim Nolan, I want to say, you ruined my life,” one teenage victim wrote in her letter, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. “You ruined my childhood teenage years and made me lose hope. I hate you.”
“I find it hard to sleep some nights because certain images from my past encounters with Tim Nolan continue to haunt me,” another victim wrote, according to WLWT-TV.
Prosecutors said Nolan, who was a judge in Campbell County, Ky. during the 1970s and 80s, would frequently volunteer at drug addiction programs to find vulnerable women. He’d then give women drugs in exchange for sex. If the women rejected his advances, Nolan threatened to use his political and legal connections against them.
Nolan was arrested in 2016 after a 16-year-old girl whose family rented a property from Nolan accused him of sexual abuse.
Nolan will be eligible for parole in four years. He must register as a sex offender for life and pay $100,000 in asset forfeiture and $10,000 to the Human Trafficking Victims Fund.
“The punishment in this case does not undo the trauma inflicted on the victims, but it brings closure and some justice,” Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said in a statement.
“The punishment in this case does not undo the trauma inflicted on the victims, but it brings closure and some justice,” Beshear said. “I want to thank the Campbell County Police Department and our special prosecutions team for working this case.
