A 40-year-old Gardnerville man who helped two teenage sisters run away to California was sentenced Wednesday to two years in California State Prison and ordered to register as a sex offender under lifetime supervision.
Jeffery Alan Palmer was sentenced for lewd acts upon a child where the defendant is more than 10 years older than the victim.
The two Gardnerville Ranchos girls were reported missing from their home by their mother on Aug. 17. They were located on Aug. 18 in a Manteca motel room along with Palmer and a 16-year-old boy.
Palmer was taken into custody, but the girls and the boy escaped from the safe house where they were being kept before their parents could arrive. That lead to a four-day search with leads as far away as Las Vegas, before the teens were picked up in Winnemucca by members of their church and brought home.
Palmer faces a charge of statutory sexual seduction in Douglas County, accused of having sex with the girl sometime between May and August 2008.
