A 60-year-old Cheyenne man is headed to prison after admitting to bribing, manipulating and grooming his teenage foster daughter to have sex with him.

Laramie County District Court Judge Catherine R. Rogers on Thursday sentenced Mervin Scofield, Jr. to 18 to 20 years in prison, rejecting a plea agreement which called for a four to seven year sentence.

"You took a child who had been entrusted in your care and you let her begin to love you and then you decided that you wanted her to be your sexual partner," Rogers told Scofield.

"I'm not a bad person, I just made a bad judgement," Scofield told Rogers, asking she sentence him to 10 to 15 years of intense supervised probation.

"I would find placing you on probation unconscionable," Rogers told Scofield. "You're a danger to this community."

Scofield has 30 days to file an appeal in the case.

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