A man previously convicted of raping four people, including two male Air Force Academy cadets, received a lighter sentence Thursday after some of the convictions were overturned on appeal.

A judge initially sentenced Oliver Newell in February 2008 to 178 years to possibly life in prison after a jury found him guilty in a series of kidnappings and sex assaults in 2006 involving three military men and a 14-year-old boy.

However, in January, the Colorado Court of Appeals partially overturned Newell’s convictions and ordered that the 33-year-old inmate be retried on those charges.

The appellate court ruled that 4th Judicial District Judge J. Patrick Kelly erred by not allowing Newell’s public defender to cross-examine one of the victims about pending juvenile court charges he was facing.

As a result, the defense was unable to adequately challenge the credibility of that witness, the three-judge panel unanimously ruled.

Rather than try the case again, prosecutors agreed to a plea deal in which Newell pleaded guilty in exchange for reducing his sentence to a minimum of 30 years in prison.

Under Colorado law, anyone convicted of a felony sex assault can be kept in prison for life.

Judge Kelly has since retired, so 4th Judicial District Judge David Shakes accepted Newell’s guilty plea and imposed the new sentence.

Deputy District Attorney Melissa Young said the victims — none of whom were in the court Thursday — had been consulted prior to the plea offer being made.

“We wanted to make sure the victims knew about this,” she said. “The feeling I got from the victims was that they wanted to close this chapter of their lives and move on.”

Newell picked up the two Air Force academy cadets at a downtown Colorado Springs bar in July 2006. Prosecutors said he either drugged them or they were too drunk to consent when he had sex with them at his house.

The 14-year-old testified that he had gone to meet a woman he met on an Internet chat line and instead met Newell who took him home and raped him at gunpoint.

A 26-year-old Fort Carson soldier also told jurors that he thought he was meeting a woman via a chat room when he went to Newell’s house and drank until passing out.

Oliver Newell Photo by

HO