A man convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Clayton John Peredo appeared in the Superior Court of Guam Friday morning. The 32-year-old was sentenced on two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

According to court documents, the 14-year-old victim said she was asleep when Peredo began pulling off her clothes. She tried to fight him off, but he overpowered her.

Peredo was initially charged with first-degree felonies and faced life in prison but prosecutors say those charges were dropped due to a legal technicality because Peredo and the victim lived in separate units of the same duplex, the case didn’t meet the legal definition of “household members.”

Despite an apology from Peredo and character testimony from his girlfriend, Judge John Terlaje imposed the maximum sentence: Eight years, with both terms to run concurrently.