By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA –  A 53-year-old Alabaster man will spend more than three years in prison after he pleaded guilty on March 5 to sexually abusing an underage victim.

James Harrison Moore, who lists an address on Wilderness Lane in Alabaster, pleaded guilty to felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree sodomy during a hearing in front of Circuit Court Judge William Bostick.

As a result of the guilty pleas, Bostick sentenced Moore to 40 months in the Alabama Penitentiary for the sodomy charge and 36 months in the Alabama Penitentiary for the sexual abuse charge. Because the sentences will be served concurrently, Moore will spend a total of 40 months in prison followed by two years of supervised probation.

Through a plea agreement with prosecutors, one first-degree sodomy charge and two first-degree sexual abuse charges were dropped against him.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Moore on June 24, 2014, and charged him with two first-degree sodomy charges and one first-degree sexual abuse charge after a member of the victim’s family told police Moore allegedly sexually abused the teenage victim over a multi-year period.

Moore was released from jail on his original three charges after posting bonds on June 27, 2014, which was four days after he was arrested by the Alabaster Police Department and charged with the three felony counts.

He was re-arrested by Alabaster police on April 6, 2015, after a grand jury indicted him on the two additional first-degree sexual abuse charges. According to the most recent indictments, Moore allegedly subjected a victim “to sexual contact by forcible compulsion” between January 1982 and January 1985.