A 51-year-old registered sex offender has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for committing another in a string of sex offenses.

A Scotts Bluff County jury last month found Timothy Fuentes guilty of sexualLY assaulting a 9-year-old girl in August. Fuentes had been tried on the same case in January, but that jury couldn’t agree on a verdict.

Fuentes insisted he was innocent at his sentencing Friday. But District Judge Randall Lippstreu said 11 pages of criminal history and behavior showed that “when Mr. Fuentes is free, children are at risk to be molested.”

Nebraska Sex Registry records say Fuentes’ first child sex assault conviction occurred in 1984. He was convicted in other cases in 1995 and 1997.