A church volunteer and former teacher was sentenced to 30 years for sexually assaulting a girl he met on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota.

Sean Kovalevich, 28, was convicted of raping the girl when she was 14 and for assaulting her when she was 15. Authorities say he lured her away from a school on the reservation.

Kovalevich took advantage “of a young Native girl who lived on the reservation, who was vulnerable and whose station in life didn’t allow her to have cell phones, to stay in hotel rooms or go out to eat,” Meredith Larson, the assistant state’s attorney for Grand Forks County, said at the sentencing hearing, The Grand Forks Herald reported.

Kovalevich's abusive relationship with the girl was well known, Larson said. At one point, police officers from the Bureau of Indian Affairs tried to get him to stay away from her, she said.

Get the Story:
Former camp counselor gets 30 years for sex with 14-year-old in Grand Forks (The Grand Forks Herald 2/25)
Former teacher gets 30 years (KFGO 2/25)
Former Teacher Sentenced To 30 Years (KVRR 2/24)

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Volunteer charged with sexual assault of Turtle Mountain teen (10/31)