A 22-year-old from Abingdon was sentenced to serve two decades behind bars after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl aboard a Baltimore-based Carnival cruise.

Jalen Thomas Kelley, a former Edgewood High School student-athlete and Wingate University football player, will also have to register as a sex offender and serve five years of probation after he serves his time in federal prison. Last year, a jury found the college student guilty on sexual abuse and assault charges during a two-week trial regarding his conduct aboard the Carnival Legend.

Specifically, federal prosecutors had alleged that Kelley led a 17-year-old girl, who was intoxicated, to his bedroom after a New Year’s event aboard the ship and forcibly had sex with her, leaving her with bruises and other injuries. At the trial, prosecutors had also called six other alleged victims of Kelley’s to establish his “long history of sexual assault,” according to court records. They called him “a serial predator” in sentencing documents, saying that he had raped the victim aboard the cruise ship and “shattered her sense of safety and privacy, just as he had done to others before.”

He “gaslit his victim and lied about his crime in order to silence his victim, which allowed him to continue preying on others,” prosecutors wrote.

Public defenders representing Kelley said in court documents that he still maintained his innocence prior to his Thursday sentencing.

They asked U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin to show leniency due to Kelley’s young age at the time of the alleged offense.