FULLERTON (AP) — An 80-year-old Southern California man has been sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison for molesting five young female relatives for more than a decade.

Claude Lee Coker of La Palma was sentenced Friday in Orange County Superior Court.

A jury convicted him on sexual abuse charges last November.

Prosecutors say Coker molested the victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 11, beginning in 1996 while they sat on his lap or as he tucked them into bed.

The abuse stopped in 2008 when a 10-year-old victim told her parents, who questioned the other children.

The five victims testified at trial. Coker denied the allegations while testifying in his own defense.

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