Defendant Estanislao Matagolai gets 10 years in prison for scamming an elderly man. But in a rare moment in local court, the victim hugged his scammer asking the judge not to send him to jail.

It was an emotional morning before Superior Court Judge Vern Perez's courtroom during Matagolai's sentencing. A jury convicted him for calling the victim multiple times asking for money and claiming to be a relative who needed it for a variety of reasons. In January, a jury convicted him of felony theft by deception with a special allegation of vulnerable victim and two counts of theft by deception.

During the hearing, the victim told Matagolai “I don’t want you to go to jail, but stay away from me..." and sharing the trauma he had stating, "just to clean my yard, I have to be careful of the shadows.”

Matagolai apologized admitting he did it feed his family. That’s when the victim hugged the defendant and called him family.

Prosecution asked for a maximum of 32 years. But the rare moment of forgiveness led to a more lenient sentencing. On top of the ten-year sentence, he will alsop serve five years parole.

Matagolai remains on electronic monitoring while he appeals his conviction.

He was ordered to stay away from the victim's home.