An Elizabethton man sentenced to more than 100 years in prison following a conviction in a child sex abuse case in 2015 has died at a detention facility according to state officials.

James Allen Perry, 57, formerly of Elizabethton, died on Friday, June 23, according to Tennessee Department of Corrections Communication Officer Robert Reburn. Perry was being housed in the TDOC’s Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility at the time of his death. The facility provides housing for TDOC inmates with special medical or mental health needs.

In Carter County Criminal Court in May 2015, Perry entered a guilty plea to 59 counts of especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and three counts of statutory rape by an authority figure. As part of his plea agreement with the state, charges of aggravated sexual battery, two counts of soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of indecent exposure with a victim under 13 years of age were dismissed.

At a sentencing hearing held in June 2015, Judge Lisa Rice sentenced Perry to an effective sentence of 106 years in prison.

Perry did not speak in court during his sentencing hearing but instead asked his attorney, David Crichton, to read a letter he had written apologizing to the child’s mother.

“I hope somehow you can find it in your heart to forgive me,” Perry stated in the letter read by Crichton. “I know I will spend the rest of my life regretting what I have done. I hope they will look at this as my first time in trouble and not have me die in prison.”

The charges against Perry stem from an investigation conducted by the Elizabethton Police Department in August 2014 after police received a complaint alleging Perry showed two 9-year-old girls pornographic materials on his computer, exposed himself to both of them, and inappropriately touched one of them.