GRAND FORKS - Adam Scott Hamilton was sentenced today in state district court in Grand Forks to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy from the time he was 6 until he was 12.
In pronouncing sentence, Judge Joel Medd said while Hamilton, 34, is a decorated military veteran who served his country in war and has no other criminal history, the sexual assaults he admitted to called for the long sentence.
Hamilton, a 12-year veteran of the Air Force including several years at the Grand Forks base and deployment to the Middle East in 2002 in the Global War on Terror, immediately was taken into custody to serve his sentence at the state prison in Bismarck. He also will be on probation for life after his prison term, including being registered as a sex offender, Medd said.
The victim spoke haltingly today during the three-hour sentencing hearing to a courtroom packed with his family and friends - as well as a handful of family and friends of Hamilton - of his anger and fear over what Hamilton had done to him and might do again. The boy asked Medd to sentence Hamilton to 35 years in prison.
