A 58-year-old Kurtistown man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for molesting a then-preteen girl almost a decade ago in Hawaiian Acres.
Philip Glenn Hutcheson will be given credit for time served. Hutcheson, who pleaded no contest in December to two counts each of first- and third-degree sexual assault, has been in custody at Hawaii Community Correctional Center since his arrest on a bench warrant after being indicted on Sept. 10, 2014.
Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto said the prison sentence is “warranted and appropriate … to reflect the nature and circumstances of the offenses … and to protect the public from further crimes” by Hutcheson.
Hutcheson could’ve been sentenced to 60 years behind bars if the sentences for each offense ran consecutively.
Asked if he wanted to speak, Hutcheson said, “Nah.”
The victim, now 17, was born in October 2000 and the offenses Hutcheson was convicted of occurred in October 2008. The girl and her mother told the Tribune-Herald in September 2014 Hutcheson was the boyfriend of the girl’s maternal grandmother, but the family had maintained a friendly relationship with Hutcheson after he and the grandmother broke up.
They said Hutcheson continued to babysit the girl until she and her mother moved back to California.
“He was there when she was born. He held her; he raised her as a grandpa,” the girl’s mother said. “… He was babysitting her while I was working (and) that’s when it happened.”
The girl said there were “many more” incidents of prior sexual abuse by the man she knew as “Papa Phil.”
The girl finally told her mother in July 2014 about the molestation and they went to authorities in California, who then notified local police.
Neither the girl nor her mother were present at the brief sentencing hearing.
The Tribune-Herald has a policy of not identifying sexual assault victims or their family members unless they choose to make their identities public.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.