A convicted rapist was sentenced to 378 years and 4 months in state prison on Friday in Yolo County Superior Court.

Ajay Kumar Dev, 42, formerly of Davis, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Timothy Fall for his multiple count conviction of the rape and sexual assault of his adopted daughter, beginning when she was 15, between January 1999 and December 2004.

In June, a jury had convicted Dev of 46 forcible sexual assaults on the child which under California law mandated full and consecutive sentences. Fall sentenced Dev to the upper term of eight years for each of those separates assaults finding that the factors in aggravation, including the violation of a position of trust, outweighed the sole factor in mitigation, the defendant's lack of prior record.

Dev was also sentenced to the legally mandated full middle term of two years each for two separate acts of witness dissuasion against the victim one of which occurred when Dev followed the girl back to their home country of Nepal after she reported the crimes to the Davis Police Department, according to Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig.

"A consecutive sentence of six years and four months was handed down for six other non-forcible counts of chid molestation for which the jury had convicted Mr. Dev," Reisig stated. "Judge Fall also sentenced the defendant to the upper term of three years on twenty-two other counts but the execution of those sentences was stayed pursuant to the Penal Code."

Reisig reported the sentencing hearing was attended by a large contingent of the defendant's family and friends as well as members of the local Nepali community.

"Some of the jury members also attended the sentencing," Reisig reported. "Three of the defendant's supporters along with the defendant and his attorney Michael Rothschild made statements to the court on the defendant's behalf. The victim did not attend the sentencing but her victim impact statement was included in the report sent to the judge by the probation department.

Dev, a native of the country of Nepal, had immigrated to the Davis area with his parents when he was 13. He is a graduate of Chico State and worked for the state Water Resources Board as an engineer and was active in the Davis Nepali community.

In 1999 he and his wife brought girl, a distant relative of Ajay, who at the time was 15 years old, to America. She was to live with them and go to school here ostensibly to give her a better education, Reisig said.

"The victim had been officially adopted by Mr. Dev and his wife in December 1999 and, according to the victim's testimony, Mr. Dev began inappropriately touching her within the first couple of weeks of her arrival and later progressed to forced sexual assault and rape on a weekly basis," Reisig reported. "The assaults continued after the victim turned 18 and was attending Sacramento City College but still lived in the Dev household."

The victim moved out of the home in December 2004, and Dev continued to try to sexually abuse the victim and even offered to pay her to do so, according to the DA's Office. Dev threatened to get a gun and shoot himself and the victim if she didn't allow him to continue to abuse her, which ultimately led to the victim reporting the situation to law enforcement.

Davis Police Detective Mark Hermann was assigned the case and while interviewing the victim he had her call the defendant on the phone. During the recorded phone call, the victim engaged him in a conversation about the abusive relationship and whether she should tell her school counselor that he, Dev, was the cause of her three abortions.

"What ensued was a conversation where Mr. Dev admitted the abuse and ultimately tried to talk the victim out of reporting it," Reisig reported earlier.

A search warrant that was served on the Dev home in Davis found child pornography on the computers. This confirmed the victim's story that Dev had shown her such pornography prior to some of the assaults, Reisig reported earlier.

The case against Dev was not filed until two years later, because the victim had returned to Nepal to attend her sister's wedding and was imprisoned there on charges brought about by a relative of Dev alleging she had the wrong date of birth on her passport.

After court proceedings in Nepal that lasted a year and a half, the was finally issued a new passport and, with help from law enforcement and the U.S. Embassy in Nepal, she was able to return to America, at which time charges were filed. While she had been in Nepal, Dev had traveled to Nepal and phoned her telling her to drop the charges and not to return to the U.S.

The trial lasted for two months. After the jury deliberated for one week, Dev was convicted of 76 felony counts including 23 counts of forcible rape; 23 counts of forcible sexual assault; 27 counts of lewd acts with a minor; and 3 counts of attempting to dissuade a witness.

The jury hung on three of the counts and returned not guilty verdicts on 13 others.

Dev had been remanded to custody without bail after having been free on bail for the three years it took to get the case to trial.