David Alan Daily shook his head and said the charges for which he was found guilty were “not in his character” prior to hearing his sentence Monday in Berrien County Trial Court.

The 41-year-old Dowagiac man said he could not speak further because he planned to appeal his conviction on three counts of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree.

Berrien County Judge Dennis Wiley then read Daily his sentence: A

minimum of seven years and four months in the Michigan Department of Corrections.

“This is just despicable behavior,” said Wiley, who presided over the jury trial.

According to court documents, Daily had committed the sexual offenses over a period of three years from 2005 to 2008 at a Niles residence. The victim was a girl under the age of 13.

Wiley said the offense was discovered when a relative of the victim found a note in the victim’s room. In it, the victim wrote about what Daily had done to her. She was planning on giving it to a school counselor.

“She buried that for years until she wrote that letter,” Wiley said. “It was obvious she had been tormented for years.”

Daily will also be required to wear electronic monitoring for the rest of his life, a state mandated punishment for which his lawyer Randall Secontine objected.

“It is cruel and unusual punishment,” he said.

Daily receives credit for 29 days already served. He was arrested in February and found guilty by jury May 29.

“If anyone is paying a high price in this case it is the victim,” said Assistant Prosecutor Amy Byrd.

Also Monday, a homeless man was sentenced to 13 months in prison on one count of resisting and obstructing a police officer. Wiley said Farries Deatos Maxwell, 28, was intoxicated when he spit on and head-butted a Niles police officer in May. Maxwell also tried to reach for the officer’s weapon, the Judge said.

“That is a very deadly combination,” Wiley said.