JOPLIN (AP) – A Carthage man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing a young girl.
The Joplin Globe reports 36-year-old Israel Halvorsen was sentenced Monday in Joplin. He pleaded guilty to first-degree statutory sodomy on July 21. The plea agreement capped the prison time he could receive at 15 years.
Police charged him in May 2013 after a call to the state’s child abuse hotline, when the girl was 13 years old. She tells officers Halvorsen had abused her since she was 4 or 5 years old.