Sex Offender Who Fled To Honduras Re-Sentenced To Life

WAXAHACHIE (CBSDFW.COM) – A 64-year-old former Waxahachie attorney who fled the country in 2007 after pleading guilty to child sex crimes was resentenced Wednesday to life in prison, Ellis County spokeswoman Diana Buckley said.

James Gordon Leonard pled guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child, indecency with a child by contact and indecency with a child by exposure on April 10, 2006. He was granted community supervision, but slipped away in May 2007.

U.S. Marshalls found him in Honduras in October of last year. He was arrested and extradited back to the United States.

During a hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors told Ellis County Judge Bob Carroll of his failure to abide by the supervision order. Following testimony from one of the victims and a grandfather of twin girls who Leonard also victimized, the judge revoked the previous punishment and resentenced him.

Leonard received maximum sentences on all three of his charges –– life in prison, 20 years and 10 years, which he must charge consecutively. Buckley said he won't be eligible for parole until serving a minimum of 45 years.

Leonard had argued for a lesser sentence, telling the judge the sex offender status was too much to bear. Judge Carroll, Buckley said, then told Leonard "there was a time and place for mercy."