AUGUSTA — A Windsor man found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl multiple times when she was 11 and 12 was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison.

Peter P. Cayouette, 49, was convicted by a jury in January of three counts of unlawful sexual contact and one count of gross sexual assault.

The victim, now 19, testified Cayouette sexually assaulted her on an almost daily basis at his Windsor home in 2017 and 2018 when she was 11 and 12. She said at Cayouette’s sentencing Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta that the hundreds of times he, a father figure to her, sexually assaulted her made her want to die. She directed some of her comments to him in court, with him turning to watch her as she spoke.

“I’m asking you, no matter what your sentence is today, to seek help,”  the victim said to the burly, bald Cayouette. “Stop sexually abusing children. Please take the time, while you are incarcerated (to work on that). And while you’re there, know that while you tried to beat me down, know that you did not. Know every day I’m bettering myself. So the little girl you tried to beat down is standing much higher than you ever were.”

The victim and her mother thanked prosecutors and others who have provided them with support.

The Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel are not naming the victim or her mother because the newspapers’ policy is to not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission.

Three friends of Cayouette spoke on his behalf, saying the former U.S. Marine who worked at Veterans Affairs Medical and Regional Office Center at Togus worked hard to help homeless veterans, helping them improve their lives and contribute to their communities.

“I watched him work very closely with these men and women,” Daniel Martins, a former co-worker said of Cayouette’s work with homeless veterans, some of whom had mental health and other issues. “I’d watch him work with them very kindly. A lot of these folks transitioned to great jobs in the community. Thanks to his help, they were able to do that.”

Cayouette’s lawyer, Darrick X. Banda, said Cayouette lost his job as a result of the guilty verdict. Banda argued for a 15-year sentence, with seven to 10 years of that suspended, citing several similar cases.

Assistant District Attorney Jake Demosthenes, the prosecutor in the case, sought a 24-year sentence on the most serious charge of gross sexual assault. He said the case is not about one incident, but about the hundreds of times Cayouette sexually assaulted the young victim.

Demosthenes said while most children live their lives knowing they will be fed and clothed and go to school and come home, the victim had a different reality, one of regular sexual assaults.

He said the victim “knew that either in the morning, or the evening, the defendant would sexually assault her.”

“For a year, she woke up and went to sleep with this reality,” Demosthenes said. “This is not a case where this happened one day, or two days, or over a weekend, or over a month. This is repeated unlawful sexual contact and gross sexual assault. Today, the defendant has not shown an iota of remorse for what he’s done.”

Superior Court Justice Daniel Mitchell issued a 20-year prison sentence, with none suspended, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Conditions during Cayouette’s release include that he not have any contact with the victim or her mother, engage in sex offender counseling and register on the state sex offender registry as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Banda sought to delay the start of Cayouette’s sentence until April 18 to give them time to consider appealing the case. Mitchell denied that, and ordered Cayouette to be taken from the courtroom to begin serving his prison sentence.

The January trial was the second for Cayouette. A prior jury trial on those same charges was declared a mistrial in February 2024, when jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict after several hours of deliberations.

This time, a jury found him guilty on all four counts.

The victim’s mother, who was dating Cayouette until her daughter revealed what he had done to the girl, said the initial trial was hard on her daughter, and she was proud of her for having testified in both trials.

When the first jury came back hung and unable to reach a verdict, she said she felt defeated and angry.

“I was so scared this was going to happen to another little girl,” she said.

While officials indicated Cayouette had no criminal record, Banda said Thursday that Cayouette volunteered he had assaulted a cab driver in 1997, and was convicted of operating under the influence the same year, serving three days in jail.

This was also not the first time Cayouette has been before a jury on sexual crime allegations. In 2012, a jury acquitted him of gross sexual assault following a trial in Oxford County Superior Court. He was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in July 2011, while he was living in West Paris, the Sun Journal reported. Jurors deliberated for about an hour.

Cayouette testified in his own defense during this trial, stating he never touched the girl inappropriately and never forced her to touch any part of his body.