SPOKANE, Wash. » A former emergency room doctor at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Spokane has been sentenced in federal court to 12 terms of life in prison for being a child molester.

Craig Morgenstern was sentenced Monday after two hours of testimony in which victimized boys and their parents urged the judge to show no leniency.

The Spokesman-Review (http://bit.ly/2aGeq3s) says the 47-year-old Morgenstern spent months and sometimes years grooming at least six boys, sedated them with prescription drugs and then filmed himself performing sex acts on them.

Morgenstern’s crimes spanned at least four states. They came to light only after a 13-year-old boy escaped his half-million-dollar home and ran screaming to a neighbor’s house in 2014.

U.S. District Court Judge William F. Nielsen handed down a sentence of 12 life terms.