Staff Reports
CORDELE -- A former law enforcement officer who worked for numerous agencies in Georgia, including the Thomas County Sheriff's Department, was sentenced in Cordele on charges of child molestation.
According to Barbara Becraft, assistant district attorney for the Cordele Judicial Circuit, 33-year-old Robert Slaybaugh, who was living in Eatonton at the time of his arrest in January 2004, entered a plea bargain Friday.
Slaybaugh, accused of molesting a female family member under age 16, pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation and one count of criminal attempt to commit incest, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
He will serve five years in a state correctional facility and the remaining 25 on probation.
He also will have to register with Georgia's Sex Offender Registry.
Slaybaugh was employed as a Thomas County Sheriff's Department deputy for several months in the 1990s.
