Daytona Beach, FL - He tried to buy his underage victim's silence with items from a card game, but it didn't work.
Now a 65-year-old man will spend the rest of his life in prison.
A Volusia County jury convicted Henry "Hank" Sowers late Tuesday night (October 9th) on two counts of capital sexual battery on a boy under 12 years of age following a two-day trial. He was also convicted of lewd and lascivious molestation.
Florida 7th Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston then sentenced the Titusville man to two consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole.
Prosecutors say Sowers performed a sex act on the child on New Year's Day in 2016 and then bought him a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards so he wouldn't report it to authorities, but the victim did just that anyway.
According to the arrest report, the assault happened in a room at a timeshare oceanfront resort on State Road A1A in Daytona Beach Shores while the boy - who was from Pennsylvania - was in the area on vacation. It was after he went back home when he told his mother what happened and she then reported it to authorities.
When speaking to detectives, the boy claimed he told Sowers to stop several times during the act and Sowers wouldn't.
The report also shows that a girl told officers that Sowers had molested her in a Clermont area hotel before he molested the boy and that information was forwarded to law enforcement there. The girl's relationship to the male victim was redacted from the report.
Sowers' conviction comes after he decided to represent himself in court instead of hiring an attorney.
He had been convicted in the past for drug possession, according to 7th Circuit State Attorney RJ Larizza's office.
