EL CAJON, Calif. >> A former Honolulu man who admitted killing his wife in San Diego County during an argument eight years ago has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Anthony Simoneau pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in March, when he agreed to the prison term. He was formally sentenced in an El Cajon courtroom on Thursday.

His wife, Fumiko Ogawa Simoneau, a Japanese national, was last seen in 2007 near their home in San Diego’s Point Loma area. Her remains later were found in the Anza-Borrego desert.

Simoneau, who lived on Makaloa Street in Honolulu, would have faced a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted of murder.

Simoneau, a former dental technician in the Navy, was charged with murder in the Jan. 20, 2007 killing of the 41-year-old Ogawa.

Simoneau moved to Hawaii from California in 2011 and was arrested in Honolulu in September on a warrant from San Diego.

He waived extradition, saying at the time that he was looking forward to “my day in court in San Diego and proving these charges erroneous.”

Ogawa’s body was found Jan. 20, 2007 near the Bow Willow Campground in the Anza-Borrego Desert, but was not identified until 2011, after a family member in Japan provided a DNA sample.

Her family had reported Ogawa missing in November 2007.

Simoneau never reported his wife missing, telling people that she was in Japan caring for a relative or in Hawaii working on their new home.

San Diego police say Simoneau married Ogawa in 1996. They said he filed for divorce in 2002 but put it off after Ogawa inherited a significant amount of money from relatives in Japan. Simoneau then went on a spending spree, buying four luxury sport-utility vehicles, four boats, a motorcycle and  three other vehicles, police said.

In 2011, Simoneau was arrested in Honolulu for felony theft for stealing a $395 piece of luggage from Nordstrom.