A well-regarded Senior Airman and medical technician at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for charges including rape, attempted rape, burglary and voyeurism.

Damerick W. Tullis, 21, declined to comment when Greene County Common Pleas Judge Stephen A. Wolaver gave him an opportunity. Fairborn police detectives got a confession from Tullis regarding a series of incidents last fall.

In sentencing Tullis, Wolaver paraphrased Mark Twain’s quote: “Every man is a moon, and has a dark side that he never shows to anybody.”

In two cases, women said Tullis jumped at them while they were jogging and grabbed or tried to grab them and remove their clothes. In other incidents, women reported having someone slip their hand under their bed covers and then run out of their residence as they awoke. Other times, police said Tullis peered into women’s windows hoping to see them naked.

The mother of one of the victims said Tullis “took her daughter’s innocence away.” Defense attorney Jay Adams, who had his client plead no contest and plans to appeal, said Tullis was a victim of multiple sexual abuses when he was a boy and that “he’s worth not throwing away.”

“The evaluation this court has received regarding your sexual proclivities and your activities can only be described as chilling,” Wolaver told Tullis. “I absolutely accept and understand the comments made by your counsel regarding the experiences you had as a young man and the victimization you have experienced. I’ve taken that into consideration.

“The prison sentence that I am going to impose upon you almost pales in comparison to the prison sentence you’ve placed upon the victims in this case.”

One victim’s mother said her daughter cannot sleep and that the attempted rape has done horrible damage. She asked the court to maximize Tullis’ prison time.

Wolaver sentenced Tullis to five years each for two counts of burglary and 10 years for the rape charge. That 20 years (10 of it mandatory) will be served concurrently with eight years for attempted rape and 60 days each for voyeurism. Two charges of kidnapping were allied offenses and joined with the rape and attempted rape for the purpose of sentencing. Tullis must register as a sex offender every 90 days for the rest of his life, give a DNA sample and pay court costs.

Many friends, family and Air Force personnel wrote letters of character reference about Tullis, including supervisors who said they awarded him for his work and “steel nerves under pressure during patient care.” Tullis, the grandson of a preacher, is married with two young children, one of whom was born since Tullis has been in jail.

“All of these people that are found in these countless letters that speak of him can’t be wrong about the qualities that he has and the potential he has,” Adams said, adding that Tullis needs treatment and counseling to deal with what other letter-writers said was the effects of repressed memories from being abused by a relative.

“It’s sad that you have disgraced the uniform of the United States Air Force,” Wolaver told Tullis. “That wraps up, to a great extent, the positions of the people who wrote on your regard.”

Assistant prosecuting attorney Cheri Stout said prosecution was due to Fairborn detectives Dan Foreman and Ryan Whittaker, who obtained a confession in a case without physical evidence. Police reports indicate Tullis said he’s been addicted to pornography since he was 7 years old.

“No one had any inclination as to these activities that he was up to,” Stout said. “He is the quintessential predator. He hid this from everyone.”