An Oak Harbor man convicted of molesting two young girls will spend at least eight years and two months in prison.

Coy Bozeman continues to deny that he committed the crimes but asked for a sentencing alternative available to some first-time sex offenders. In Island County Superior Court last week, Judge Vickie Churchill denied his request and handed him an indeterminate sentence of 98 months to life.

In February, a jury in Island County Superior Court found Bozeman, 55, guilty of three counts of child molestation in the first degree.

He molested a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old girl after he and his wife took them into their home and cared for them over about six months from the fall of 2018 to spring of 2019.

The jury found him not guilty of molesting a third girl who was 6 years old at the time of the allegations.

The case made regional headlines because Bozeman and his wife had owned a preschool in Oak Harbor, although there were no allegations that any crimes occurred at the facility.

Bozeman had requested a special sex offender sentencing alternative, which is a program that allows some first-time sex offenders to receive a lesser sentence in exchange for undergoing rigorous therapy and monitoring.

In order to qualify for the special sentencing, Bozeman hired a certified sex offender treatment provider to determine his amenability to treatment and submitted to a polygraph exam.

The treatment provider, Michael O’Connell, noted in his report that Bozeman denied sexually assaulting the children even though a polygraph exam he took last year found that he was untruthful when he denied molesting one of the girls.

Bozeman’s answers to questions about the other girls contained “insufficient data,” the report states.

A more recent polygraph found that he was truthful when he denied molesting any other children; this exam didn’t directly ask him about the crimes he was convicted of committing.

The report also states that when Bozeman was in the Navy he frequented prostitutes in massage parlors in Everett as well as other areas across the county and in other nations; Bozeman was confident that all the prostitutes were adults.

O’Connell concluded that Bozeman is amenable to treatment. He opined that Bozeman is a low risk of reoffending and that he could get treatment tailored to offenders who deny committing sex offenses.

Deputy Prosecutor David Carman and a community corrections officer, on the other hand, argued that Bozeman should receive a standard range sentence.

The community correction officer’s pre-sentence investigation states that Bozeman changed his story about several aspects of the case during an interview.

Churchill decided against granting Bozeman’s request after considering several factors, including whether the sentence would be too lenient, the victims’ wishes, amenability to treatment and the risk to the community.

The indeterminate sentence means that Bozeman will serve a minimum of 98 months in prison and then a review board will determine when he should be released.

Bozeman will also be under Department of Corrections community supervision for life and will have to register as a sex offender.

Carman said the girls are living in another state with their father and are doing well.