From Chelsea Phua:
A 60-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for committing lewd acts on an 8-year-old Rocklin girl, authorities said.
According to a news release by the Placer County District Attorney's officer, Steven Eugene Hesson, a registered sex offender with a history of child molestation, had volunteered to babysit the girl when her father left the house because of an emergency. Hesson was renting a room at the home of the girl's father. Rocklin police arrested Hesson on Sept. 24, and Hesson pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation on March 18.
At Wednesday's sentencing, a 29-year-old woman who said she was molested by Hesson when she was 4 spoke in court.
"Words cannot explain the emotional pain in my mind and body have gone through," she said. Hesson, she said, had robbed her of her childhood innocence. She said she suffered from stress, depression anger, nightmares and drug problems.
"I wanted to pretend like it never happened to me and tried to repress it and put it in a dark corner in my mind," she said.
Her case was dismissed at the time because the judge then deemed she was too young to provide competent testimony. Placer County Deputy District Attorney Jeff Wood said the woman has waited 25 years to tell her story.
"Hopefully, this will being some closure for her," Wood said.
Hesson also served a 6-year prison sentence in 1984 for child molestation, according to the prosecutor.
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