By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

A 40-year-old Maylene man will spend the next 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually enticing and sexually abusing a juvenile.

Robert Clyde Pennington, who lists an address on Brantleyville Road in Maylene, pleaded guilty to one felony count of enticing a child to enter a vehicle or house for immoral purposes and one misdemeanor count of second-degree sexual abuse in April, according to Shelby County District Court records.

After Pennington pleaded guilty, Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves sentenced him to 10 years in prison, the maximum possible for the felony enticement charge.

Pennington also must complete a sex offender intervention treatment program while incarcerated, and must avoid contact with the victim or her family after he is released from prison.

Alabaster police arrested Robert Clyde Pennington on Nov. 16, 2013, and charged him with the two charges. Alabaster Police Chief Curtis Rigney previously said officers arrested Pennington at his residence on Brantleyville Road after responding to a report related to the case.

According to Alabama law, a person commits the crime of enticing a child to enter a vehicle or house for immoral purposes when they “entice, allure, persuade, or invite, or attempt to entice, allure, persuade, or invite, any child under 16 years of age to enter any vehicle, room, house, office, or other place for the purpose of proposing to such child the performance of an act of sexual intercourse or an act which constitutes the offense of sodomy or for the purpose of proposing the fondling or feeling of the sexual or genital parts of such child or the breast of such child, or for the purpose of committing an aggravated assault on such child or for the purpose of proposing that such child fondle or feel the sexual or genital parts of such person.”

According to Alabama law, a person commits second-degree sexual abuse when the suspect “being 19 years old or older, subjects another person to sexual contact who is less than 16 years old, but more than 12 years old.”