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GENTRY COUNTY, MO. -- A former longtime Kirksville attorney already serving prison time for a sex crime lost big this week in a civil trial.

During the civil trial in Gentry County, Tom Oswald, 86, was ordered to pay the victim of the sex crime $555,000.

The more than half-million dollar judgment stems from the 2007 events that led to the arrest and eventual conviction of Oswald.

In 2009, Oswald pleaded guilty to a charge of statutory sodomy.

Prosecutors said Oswald had inappropriate sexual contact with a Kirksville boy who was 14 at the time.

Attorney Danieal Miller, who represented the boy and his family during the civil trial, said this case highlights the sad truth that beneath the veneer of prominence and respectability can lie a person, who at their core, is despicable.

Miller went on to say some people use their position to hide and perpetuate wrongful acts, and Mr. Oswald is one of those people.