A Durango man convicted of multiple sex assaults on children will spend decades in prison.

A jury found Harold Loveday guilty of three counts of sexual assault on a minor younger than 15 years old and one count of incest in December.

The charges stemmed from a series of sexual assaults that Loveday perpetrated in Durango on three separate victims over the course of more than a decade.

On Friday, 6th Judicial District Judge William Herringer sentenced Loveday to a minimum of 22 years in prison.

The sentences were indeterminate, meaning Loveday will leave prison only if the Department of Corrections opts to end his incarceration.

Loveday’s attorney, Daniel Schaffer, indicated that Loveday intends to appeal.

At the sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney Christian Champagne asked for the maximum allowable sentence.

Champagne said Loveday had “an extremely high IQ” and showed no remorse, despite eight people coming forward at various points to say Loveday sexually assaulted them.

“And I believe that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Champagne said. “He’s a sexual predator. He finds the most vulnerable girls in our community at the most vulnerable times in their lives. And he’s been doing it a very, very long time.”

In the La Plata County Courthouse, two victims spoke.

One said she was speaking not just for the victims who came forward, “but for the ones who couldn’t.”

“I believe this man will be remembered for the hurt, heartache and destruction he has caused. ... Please don’t let him ruin the innocence of any young child in our small community again. ... Please put him away for as long as possible, so I can get a decent night’s sleep.”

Another said she might have been able to forgive Loveday, but for “the fact that he hasn’t owned up to what he did to us.”

“I can’t get past this because he can’t even comprehend what he did to us, that he ruined us. I don’t want to see a child go through that again,” she said.

She said she had reported Loveday and persevered through the long process of a trial because she promised herself that “I am going to be the last victim that he ever victimizes because I am not a victim – I am a survivor.”

Loveday’s family member, David Loveday, asked Herringer to be lenient, saying Loveday did not deserve the stigma of being labeled a sex offender.

“That will stick to him like tar,” he said.

He said Loveday was more than the sum of his bad acts, recalling how Loveday had taught him how to fish, throw a ball and take responsibility for his actions.

When Herringer gave Harold Loveday the opportunity to speak on his own behalf, Loveday said, “I would. But all I’d do is make it bad. I don’t like being lied about. Apparently, it’s OK here.”

On sentencing Loveday to the maximum, Herringer said, “The thing that strikes me is the fact that Mr. Loveday really took advantage of the most vulnerable kids in our community. Kids who were skipping school, using drugs, having difficulties in their families.”

He said “sex assault on a child is obviously a terrible and heinous crime,” but the victims’ fragile situations “make his crimes particularly egregious.”

Herringer said Loveday had shown no interest in rehabilitation and instead “maintained silence and asserted conspiracy theories and protested his innocence, notwithstanding what the court considers overwhelming evidence of his guilt and what a jury considered proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

Herringer told Loveday he would have to register as a sex offender on his release from prison.

“That’s if you’re ever released from prison,” he said.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com