A former Mississippi bus driver was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday after a girl testified she was molested for 23 consecutive days.
The girl, who was a second-grader at the time, said that Sergio Sandoval would then send her back to her seat with candy, according to the Sun Herald newspaper.
A jury had convicted the former Ocean Springs driver earlier Wednesday for sexual battery and touching a child for lustful purposes. The repeated assaults took place in 2014.
“This is one of the most brazen and bold crimes that I have seen,” District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said, according to the Sun Herald. “He was driving a school bus with children and molesting an 8 year old. He is the epitome of a sexual predator. When he got on that bus everyday, that was his playground.”
The victim’s father told the judge in the Pascagoula courtroom that Sandoval’s crimes “has taken a toll” on his daughter and the family.
“That is something she is going to live with and we are going to live with for a long time,” he said, according to the newspaper.
The girl testified that Sandoval, now 69, would drive with one hand and touch her with the other.
*story by nydailynews.com