A professional rock climber and guidebook author from California was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for sexually assaulting women after he weaponized his authority to harm women and issued threats if they came forward, prosecutors said.

A Sacramento federal jury convicted Charles Barrett, 40, earlier this year of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact stemming from incidents at Yosemite National Park

“It is time to put a definitive end to Barrett’s reign of terror,” one of his victims said during her statements in court before sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Arin Heinz listed alleged sexual assaults beginning in 2008 and ending in 2016. A victim was sexually assaulted three times in August 2016 while in Yosemite National Park for a weekend of hiking.

Three other women also testified about sexual assaults, including rape, during the trial. Prosecutors did not bring charges for those alleged incidents because they occurred outside the U.S. Attorney’s Office jurisdiction, prosecutors said.

On Feb. 13, Barrett was found guilty by a jury of repeatedly raping a woman in August 2016 at Yosemite National Park, where he lived and worked at the time.

According to a report by Kristy McGee, a special agent in the National Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch, Barrett initiated the first assault of his then-19-year-old victim by “aggressively kissing her … not slowing down or stopping when she asked, ripping out her nose ring when she tried to create distance, and continuing even though she straightened out her arm and pressed it against (his) chest and told him to ‘stop.”

Barrett then “strangled her to the point where she didn’t know if she lost consciousness or not,” then sexually assaulted her, according to the report.

He assaulted the victim twice more over the next two days, during which time she stayed with him because she was in a “frozen state,” and feared for her life, the woman told investigators.

“This defendant used his renown and physical presence as a rock climber to lure and intimidate victims who were part of the rock-climbing community,” U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert said in a statement after his conviction. “His violent sexual assaults were devastating to the victims, whom he later threatened in the lead-up to trial.”

Barrett was also convicted in 2017 for issuing threats against a woman he allegedly assaulted, prosecutors said.

Bakersfield-based defense attorney Timothy Hennessy said a life sentence was not appropriate because Barrett suffers from a mental health illness. There’s more to Barrett than what was described in the courtroom, he said.

Mendez said in court that Barrett had not shown remorse. Barrett has claimed he was a victim and that the National Park Service had engaged in a conspiracy to trap him.

“We are grateful for the tireless work of the National Park Service investigative team and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring this case to justice,” Yosemite National Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon said in a statement Tuesday. “Today’s sentencing sends a clear message about the consequences of this criminal behavior. It makes Yosemite a safer place for the climbing community, park visitors and our employees.”

Heinz wiped tears from her face as the crying victims hugged each other after the sentencing.

“There is no recovering what Charlie (Barrett) did to me,” the victim said.

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