SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- A former respiratory therapist was sentenced to more than 45 years in prison Wednesday for sexually preying upon some of the most defenseless patients at the hospital where he worked: children so sick they couldn't speak out.
Wayne Albert Bleyle had pleaded guilty to molesting five disabled children and taking pornographic photographs of others.
Prosecutors said he targeted patients who were comatose, brain-damaged or too disabled to talk.
He allegedly told investigators he molested as many as half the children he treated in 10 years working in the convalescent ward at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.
Sometimes Bleyle stared straight ahead during his sentencing hearing; sometimes he cast his eyes down at a table. Anywhere but at the victims' relatives, some weeping, others shaking with anger.
"I just want you to know it doesn't matter what you say or how many years you spend in jail -- it's not going to be enough," said Lillian Godfrey, whose daughter, now dead, was among those Bleyle abused. "I don't think you have a soul. You're just an empty human shell."
"The acts Mr. Bleyle inflicted on my daughter ... disabled, mentally fragile, are a parent's worst nightmare," Janice Frost said.
One of Frost's daughters was under Bleyle's care from the time she entered the long-term facility as a 10-day-old newborn suffering a brain condition. She was 10 years old when she died in June 2006, three months after federal investigators discovered her image in pornographic photos on Bleyle's computer.
"During her dying moments, I told her I would see this through," Frost said outside the courtroom, as she clutched one of her three older daughters.
Bleyle, 56, was arrested in March 2006 after federal agents traced child porn through Internet file-sharing networks to his home computer in suburban Santee. They found tens of thousands of pornographic images, including photographs he took of himself abusing his patients.
Bleyle confessed to investigators who reached him by phone in New York state, where he was visiting relatives, that he had molested as many of his patients as there were snowflakes falling outside his window, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Under an agreement reached in June, Bleyle pleaded guilty to eight counts of forcible lewd acts involving five children. At a hearing in June, he also agreed to plead guilty to four counts of exhibiting minors in pornographic materials, far less than the initial 33 pornography counts.
The plea was modified Wednesday, with prosecutors dropping one pornography count and Bleyle pleading guilty to a single count of posing a child for pornographic purposes.
Bleyle was ordered by Superior Court Judge Kenneth K. So to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence -- close to 39 years, by which time Bleyle would be in his mid-90s. He faced up to 165 years had he been convicted of all counts.
Prosecutors said they made a deal in part to spare one of Bleyle's victims the strain of testifying. The teenage girl said Bleyle inappropriately touched her buttocks while she recovered from a stroke.
"This provides closure for everybody," Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn said outside the courtroom.
Investigators identified four of the five children Bleyle pleaded guilty to abusing: three girls and a boy who were all younger than 14 when the molestations took place. Two of the children have since died.
Investigators never learned the name of the fifth victim, a 2-year-old girl.
Pandora Johnson's son was not identified in court documents as a victim, but she and three other parents who believe Bleyle abused their children were allowed to speak at the hearing.
Pandora Johnson said she had asked her son, who cannot speak because of a breathing device in his throat, whether he had been abused.
"He didn't give his usual yes or no sign. He just looked afraid," Johnson said. "And when I said, 'Wayne will never do this to you again,' he gave me a big smile. That smile broke my heart."
Bleyle did not address the court except to murmur, "Guilty, your honor," when asked how he pleaded to the posing charge.
His attorney, Casey Donovan, spoke on his behalf after the families were finished.
"He wishes to apologize to all the victims and their families," said Donovan, who noted that Bleyle himself had been sexually abused as a boy. "He knows he can never make amends for what he has done."
Donovan said Bleyle claimed that Johnson's son was not among those he molested.
Bleyle worked at the well-regarded children's hospital for 25 years. A month after his arrest, a second hospital employee, tracked through peer-to-peer networks, was charged with molesting a comatose toddler patient.
Christopher Alan Irvin, a 32-year-old nurse at the time, pleaded guilty in September to molesting the toddler and was later sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison.
The arrests prompted the hospital to ban cell phones in patient treatment areas, including rooms, and require doors and curtains around patients be left open most of the time, said hospital spokesman Ben Metcalf.
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