The fugitive heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, Andrew Luster, has been sentenced in absentia to 124 years in jail for drugging and raping three women while out on dates with them, officials said tonight.
A judge in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, also ordered Luster - who fled his own trial while free on one million dollars bail on January 3rd and who remains at large - to pay a million dollars restitution to his victims.
The sentence was handed down last night following his January 21st conviction on 86 charges linked to the date rapes of the women whose drinks he spiked with a date rape drug before having sex with them.
"He has now received a tough sentence, all we have to do now is find him," a source at the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said on condition of anonymity.
"We could ask for 200 years and it would be beside the point," prosecutor Maeve Fox told Judge Ken Riley, according to the Ventura Daily Star.
"Mr Luster, when he is caught, God willing, will never be able to commit these kinds of acts again," she added.
The 39-year-old great grandson of Hollywood make-up mogul Max Factor, who lived off a trust fund and real estate investments believed to be worth around 31 million dollars, had faced a maximum sentence of 165 years.
While rejecting a defence request to sentence the runaway millionaire to three years jail with credit for time served, the judge stopped short of imposing the maximum penalty on the fugitive.
AFP