A fugitive arrested in Gorham in March after 34 years on the lam from rape charges in Massachusetts was sentenced on Thursday to 36-40 years behind bars.

Gary A. Irving, 52, was sentenced by Judge Kenneth J. Fishman in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass. Irving had been convicted in June 1979 but fled before sentencing. A court spokeswoman said on Friday that Irving would be incarcerated at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Cedar Junction in Walpole, Mass., a maximum security facility.

Irving had been wanted on a Massachusetts Superior Court warrant. He was found and arrested on March 27 at his South Street home in Gorham, where he was known as Gregg A. Irving, a married man with children. He was described as a good neighbor.

A police task force unit that included Maine and Massachusetts state troopers, FBI and Gorham Police Officer Michael Brown apprehended Irving.

He had been charged and convicted of three counts of rape, kidnapping and unnatural acts stemming from 1978, according to a Gorham police report following his arrest. Irving was held at Cumberland County Jail but was returned to Massachusetts for sentencing after an appearance in a hearing in a Portland courtroom.

A statement released by the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office after Irving was sentenced said, “Assistant District Attorney Michele Armour requested that Irving be sentenced to 40 to 50 years on the first rape victim, 40 to 50 years ON AND AFTER (consecutive) on the second rape victim, and 8 to 10 years ON AND AFTER those sentences on a kidnapping charge. She requested lifetime probation supervision after release ordered on the remainder of the convictions.

“Judge Kenneth J. Fishman sentenced Irving to 18 to 20 years on one rape, with 18 to 20 years ON AND AFTER (consecutive) on a second rape with a 7 to 10 year concurrent sentence on the kidnapping, with 20 years’ probation on the other counts.”

District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey spoke following the sentencing.

“Today provides, finally, some answer to the survivors of these crimes,” Morrissey said in a statement released by his office. “This predator is finally going to prison for these attacks. We felt that the calculated brutality of these crimes, the repeated nature of these attacks, warranted a very long prison term. And to the women who testified in 1979 and who are watching today, it is my hope that this brings some measure of relief. And I personally thank you for your courage.”

Gary A. Irving