Flathead District Court Judge Robert Allison banished a sex offender from Flathead County on Thursday, after he was convicted of a second felony involving alleged sexual misconduct with children.

Jayson Arik Marquez, 39, was given a 10-year probationary sentence for felony criminal endangerment, which Marquez pleaded guilty to as part of a plea bargain where a sexual intercourse without consent charge was dropped. He was ordered to report daily to probation and parole officers and cannot live in or visit Flathead County so long as his victim resides there.

Prosecutors accused Marquez of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl from November 2011 and January 2012.

Marquez’s attorney Sean Hinchey said that Marquez has maintained his innocence throughout the case and would have preferred to take the case to trial.

“It was a defensible case,” Hinchey said.

Hinchey said there were inconsistencies in the victim’s account of the assaults and that Marquez passed a polygraph test that inquired about the allegations.

Marquez agreed to plead guilty to criminal endangerment because if he was convicted of the sex charge at trial, he would face up to 100 years in prison, with a lengthy sentence required.

“Were we to try this and lose, he would spend the next 25 years in prison,” Hinchey said.

Hinchey and prosecutor Travis Ahner made a joint recommendation for Marquez to serve an eight-year suspended sentence to Montana State Prison.

Ahner said the agreement was “the product of negotiations as the parties looked at the strengths and weaknesses of their cases.”

Ahner said the victim’s mother indicated that a settled agreement was preferable to a trial in the case.

Judge Allison said that he understood the difficulty of resolving tough sex cases, but said that he felt it necessary to go a bit beyond the bounds of a probationary sentence because the victim feels unsafe.

Allison said it was “extremely concerning” that Marquez had a prior conviction for sexual assault in 1998, and in a recently completed sex offender evaluation Marquez denied that the 1998 sexual assault or the more recent allegations ever happened.

“I’m not sure in the interest of community safety that a probationary disposition is a great idea,” Allison said.

Hinchey objected when Marquez was ordered to stay out of Flathead County, but Allison said a stay in Montana State Prison was the only other option to make sure the victim feels safe.

“This probably sounds like a harsh penalty, but it beats the alternative,” Allison said.

Allison also required Marquez to re-complete a sex-offender treatment program, when Marquez asked if it was necessary because he had already completed it once.

“You are going to do it again because it didn’t work,” Allison said.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.