A Bethany man received nearly 42 years in prison for multiple sexual assaults, including three attacks that occurred after he'd bailed out of jail with a sex abuse case pending.

Facing charges of third-degree sex abuse, harrassment, theft and burglary, Yusuf Sheikh-Nur posted bail Feb. 1, 2013, and was released from the Washington County Jail.

Ten days later, Sheikh-Nur was back in jail on accusations of rape.

Sheriff's deputies later learned that he had sexually assaulted three female victims while he was out of custody on bail.

Ultimately, prosecutors filed six separate cases against Sheik-Nur between November 2012 and May 2013, on allegations of property, drug and sex crimes.

Sheikh-Nur opted for a non-jury trial in four of the cases, which came before Washington County Circuit Judge Eric Butterfield in November last year.

Records show Butterfield found the defendant guilty of 19 counts, including Measure 11 charges of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse and using a child in a display of sexual conduct.

In the two property crime cases, Sheikh-Nur pleaded guilty to a count of third-degree robbery and second-degree burglary.

Butterfield sentenced 30-year-old Sheikh-Nur last week to 41 years and nine months in prison, said Deputy District Attorney Jeff MacLean.

MacLean said while Sheikh-Nur may have seen some of the five victims before, all of them were strangers to him. Sheikh-Nur's pattern, MacLean said, was to strike up a conversation with them at a bus stop or on the street and lead them somewhere before the assault.

In one case, Sheikh-Nur took a girl behind a building and sexually assaulted her, MacLean said. In another, he pushed a girl into a car, sexually abused her and put meth in her mouth. In the final incident, he lured a woman to his apartment, where he raped and sodomized her.

Lawyer Christopher McCormack, who represented the defendant, said Sheikh-Nur's defense was that all of the acts were consensual.

The number of victims, who did not know one another and made similar allegations, likely influenced the verdicts, McCormack said.

"I think that there was reasonable doubt on each case individually," he said. "Unfortunately, the judge obviously felt otherwise."

McCormack said Sheikh-Nur plans to appeal.

-- Emily E. Smith