A former Andalusia Police officer will spend the next year in jail for sending text messages to one of his victims just two days after entering a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time.

Kevin Owens, the 43-year-old who was also an unsuccessful 2006 candidate for sheriff, pleaded earlier this month before Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan to sexual misconduct in the first case and assault III in two separate cases. He was given a one-year suspended sentence of concurrent time in each case, placed on two years of supervised probation and ordered to pay an assortment of fees and fines in each case.

He was also ordered to refrain from contact with the victims and the victims’ families, as well as unsupervised visitation with any minor while on probation – a condition, court records show, he violated two days after negotiating the plea deal.

Owens, who was arrested in 2007, faced charges of sexual abuse, rape, sodomy and intimidating a witness in the incidents following allegations that he engaged in sexual intercourse with a female by forcible compulsion and he subjected a child under the age of 12 to sexual conduct.

“The court…(finds Owens) did, during the term of his probation, and on Sept. 26, 2012, commit the offense of harassing communications one (one of his victims*) using certain text messages sent to her cell phone,” the order stated.

At the hearing Wednesday, McKathan ordered Owens be remanded into custody and delivered to the Covington County Jail. Jail staff confirmed Thursday that Owens is being housed in another jail facility outside the county.

Once released, Owens must continue to register as a convicted sex offender; however, since sexual misconduct is a misdemeanor offense, it is not required that his information be posted on the online database.

* Editor’s note: It is The Star-News’ policy to not identify victims in sexual abuse-related cases.