On Tuesday afternoon, 70-year-old Mesa resident Richard Box was sentenced to one year in jail and five years of felony probation after pleading no contest to felony sex crimes and domestic violence charges in February.
Box was first arrested in December 2013 after being accused of repeatedly abusing and raping his wife during their three-year marriage and molesting his then-15-year old stepdaughter, who authorities said was living in a small closet under a stairwell and being groomed as Box’s sex slave. Box and his wife married in 2011, after his wife and her daughter relocated from Thailand to live with him.
Box was released on his own recognizance on Christmas in 2013 after posting $2 million bail, but his encounters with law enforcement were far from over. Less than a month after his original arrest, Box was charged with two more counts of child molestation, stemming from a 2012 Long Beach case in which Box allegedly exposed himself to a 12-year-old girl who lived in an apartment complex he owned, and asked her to perform sexual acts on him.