A 53-year-old Butler man was sentenced Tuesday to prison for raping a 13-year-old in 2010.

Butler County Common Pleas Judge William Shaffer sentenced James Cubbins to 6½ to 13½ years in prison, and he must register as a sex offender for life.

Cubbins originally was scheduled for sentencing on April 13, 2017, after he pleaded guilty Dec. 2, 2016, to rape by forcible compulsion, unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of minors.

But it was put on hold after Cubbins decided to appeal his sentence in a similar case he faced in Allegheny County. In that case, a jury found him guilty of raping the same victim as in the Butler case in 2012.

After Cubbins' appeal, which made it to the state's Superior Court, was complete, an Allegheny County judge sentenced Cubbins to 10 to 20 years in prison on Dec. 12. The two prison sentences are running simultaneously.

In the Butler case, the victim alerted Cranberry Township Police on March 4, 2013, that Cubbins raped her in September 2010.

At the time, the victim told police, she was living in the same residence as Cubbins in the Cranberry Township area. She said that on the night she was raped, she was getting ready to go to bed and while she was going to her room, Cubbins called to her from his room across from hers.

Cubbins asked her to watch a movie with him, so she sat on the edge of his bed to watch it. She told police that after a few minutes he began to comment on how pretty and “well built” she was.

He then asked her to perform oral sex on him but she said no and got up to leave. But he told her to wait and then asked if she was interested in having sex. Again she said no and when she tried to leave, he pulled her onto the bed and raped her. After two minutes, she was able to get away, grabbing her things and locking herself in her room.

This wasn't the victim's first accusation against Cubbins. Just two months before she told her story to Cranberry police, the Northern Regional Police Department charged Cubbins with raping the victim in 2012. This led to the Allegheny County case.On March 28, 2014, an Allegheny County jury convicted Cubbins of rape by forcible compulsion, unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of a minor.The victim testified during the trial, according to court documents, that she had known Cubbins since July 2010.In 2012, while she was 15 years old, due to family circumstances, the victim was residing with her father and Cubbins in an apartment. The victim stated that one day in July, after she returned home from her summer job, she was watching TV in her room when Cubbins entered. She stated that he was “drunk as usual,” sat down on her bed, and asked her if she wanted to have sex. She declined.The victim testified that he got on top of her, forced her legs open, took off her pants and underwear and raped her. She disclosed the rape to her boyfriend on Feb. 13, 2013, at a point when Cubbins was not residing in the apartment, and her boyfriend encouraged her to tell her father what had happened. She told her father the following day, and he promptly took her to the police.

On Oct. 6, 2016, Cubbins appealed the decision to a higher state court citing two claims.First, he said that he was serving an illegal sentence as outlined by a federal Supreme Court decision, Alleyne v. United States. And second, that he had an ineffective lawyer, who didn't call witnesses who would have provided positive testimony about Cubbins.In his appeal, he said that he had family members and friends who were willing to testify about Cubbins' “reputation in the community for being chaste and acting appropriately around children.”On Dec. 15, 2017, the appeal's court determined that Cubbins' ineffective assistance of counsel claims did not entitle him to relief, but agreed that his Alleyne claim of an illegal sentence required a resentencing hearing. And the state's Superior Court affirmed this decision, finding that the court would have to resentence Cubbins.Cubbins' lawyer in the Butler case, Samir Sarna, declined to comment for this article.Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope, prosecuting the case, said the victim and her family were aware of the plea deal he offered Cubbins and are “happy with the sentence.”Cubbins is serving his sentence in a state prison facility in Albion, and Shaffer granted him credit for time already served since Sept. 1, 2016.