Jury orders sex offender to pay $19M

WEST PAM BEACH, Fla., March 12 (UPI) -- A Florida jury has ordered a man convicted of sexually abusing a girl from the time she was 3 until almost 9 to pay her $19.2 million.

Tim Crowe, who reportedly lives in Miami Beach and will be 68 next week, was arrested in 1993 and served six years of a 17-year prison sentence before being paroled in 2002 as a registered sex offender, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday.

His victim, who had lived in Jupiter as a child and now is in her 20s, is reported to be undergoing treatment for her ordeal and is expected to receive medical care for life, her attorney, Michael Dolce, told the Sun-Sentinel.

The jury awarded the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, just under $1 million for future medical treatment, and more than $18 million for past and future anguish, pain and suffering, the newspaper said.

Dolce said in a statement he doubted his client would ever receive most of the money, but she achieved her primary goal of trying to inspire other child victims of sex abuse to speak out against their abusers.

Dolce said Crowe, who did not show up himself and was not represented at the 2 1/2-day trial that ended Wednesday, molested his client an estimated 400 times, The Palm Beach Post reported. The relationship between Crowe and his victim wasn't reported.