A Battle Creek man who evaded a Michigan prison cell for 16 years has been ordered to pay for his incarceration.

A Calhoun County Circuit Court judge ruled on Monday that an investment account established by Paul Sinclair, who pleaded guilty last year to drug delivery charges, was his money and 90 percent of it could be seized by the state of Michigan to pay for his prison sentence.

Judge Sarah Lincoln ruled that evidence showed that a TD Ameritrade account that Sinclair opened in 2018 and the $12,000 in the account was his and didn't belong to his father, David Sinclair.

The State Treasury sought to collect the money under the State Correctional Facility Reimbursement Act, which allows the state to take money from inmates to pay for their incarceration.

Sinclair, who is 37, fled in 2002 just before his trial in Calhoun County Circuit Court on a charge of delivery of cocaine. He began a new life in Florida after taking the name of a dead child.

He was caught attempting to renew his passport in 2015 and served 25 months in a federal prison before returning to Michigan and, in September 2018, entered a plea to the drug delivery charge and was sentenced to prison.

Pau Sinclair was sentenced Nov. 30, 2018, to a minimum of just over four years to 30 years with credit for two years in the Michigan Department of Corrections. He could be paroled in May 2021.

This year the state moved to claim the money in the TD Ameritrade account.

Sinclair's father challenged the move and testified on Monday that the account was in his son's name but the money was his.

David Sinclair said his son established the account and began making investments but the money was for the father, not the son.

"I funded that account to add to my retirement," he said during questioning by his attorney, Namita Sharma. "Paul never put money into the account.

Paul Sinclair, testifying by closed circuit from the Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson told the court the account was his but "the money does not belong to me. I was making the trades. I wanted to make him (David Sinclair) some money with his own money."

He told Katherine Kakish, an attorney for the State Treasurer that, "I was the owner of the account but not the owner of the funds in the account."

But Kakish introduced documents showing that the account was in Paul Sinclair's name and his father was not listed as a beneficiary until this year. She also had emails from Paul Sinclair to both his mother and sister referring to the money as his and how, if the state took it, he wouldn't have money when he is released from prison.

Lincoln ruled that the evidence did not show that David Sinclair had rights to the account and that Paul Sinclair had not formally objected on time to the actions by the state and so the state was permitted to claim 90 percent of the account.

Sinclair was about to be tried after his arrest on charges of delivery of 2.2 pounds of cocaine. Investigators said Sinclair was selling marijuana with his sister's boyfriend while he was a student at Lakeview High School.

He began selling the drugs to undercover officers, who encouraged him to sell them larger amounts of marijuana and then the cocaine.

After his arrest, he provided information on two larger dealers who were convicted but then he fled before his case was resolved.

He has told the court that, while in Florida, he had no contact with his family and worked at a casino and obtained a realtor's license.

Contact Trace Christenson at 269-966-0685 or tchrist@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @TSChristenson