Repeat sex offender gets 9-plus years in prison
A Sonora man was sentenced to nine years, eight months in state prison on Friday after being caught possessing child pornography while he was on felony probation for assaulting a 10-yearold girl with the intent of raping her in January 2019, Tuolumne County District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke announced Tuesday.
Michael Ludwig, 44, was arrested on Jan. 7 after probation officers found child porn during a search of his residence on the 18800 block of Black Oak
Road. The release said he told officers at the time he “had a weakness for young girls.”
Ludwig was on probation stemming from an incident on Jan. 24, 2019, when he asked a 10-yearold girl if he could “touch her privates” and began reaching toward her in the parking lot of a grocery store on Stockton Road in Sonora, the release said.
The girl ran from Ludwig and told what happened to her grandmother, who subsequently reported the incident to the Sonora Police Department, according to published reports from the time.
Sonora police confirmed the incident through surveillance video and gathered descriptions from witnesses, including a grocery store employee who identified him as an employee of a used-car business.
On Feb. 1, 2019, Ludwig was arrested by Sonora police at his workplace on the 400 block of South Washington Street. Jail booking logs listed him as living on the 22400 block of South Airport Road at the time.
A jury convicted Ludwig of felony assault with intent to rape a child under 18 on April 26, 2019, the release on Tuesday said.
The release also said that Jenecke had requested Ludwig receive a seven-year sentence in state prison for the 2019 offense, though Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Kevin Seibert sentenced him to one year in county jail and a term of felony probation.
Ludwig was identified as a registered sex offender upon his arrest in 2019, though at the time he was considered to be in a lowrisk category for reoffending and was not publicly listed in the Megan’s Law statewide database for sex offenders.
Megan’s Law now shows Ludwig was first convicted of indecent exposure in 2000 prior to the 2019 conviction. His current address is listed as “incarcerated.”
Ludwig pleaded guilty to his latest offenses on Aug. 20 and agreed to the stipulated sentence of nine years, eight months in prison, the release on Tuesday said.