A Lowhill Township man was sentenced Monday to serve 2½ to 5 years for signing a 16-year-old girl out of school and fleeing to Mexico.

Kevin Esterly, 45, of Lowhill Township pleaded guilty Nov. 11 to one count of corruption of a minor, was given the maximum sentence allowed by Judge Maria Dantos on Dec. 10.

Esterly said he went to Mexico with Allentown teen Amy Yu, 16, on March 5 because she was unhappy at home and he wanted to protect her.

Both have denied any intimate relationship.

Yu; her mother, Mui T. Luu; and Esterly’s wife, Stacey; testified at Monday’s sentencing hearing.

Lehigh County Court Judge Maria Dantos told him he had ruined two families. Esterly’s estranged wife, Stacy, who filed for divorce shortly after the two were returned, testified tearfully Monday that she is struggling as a single mother, The (Allentown) Morning Call reported.

“My 11-year-old got approached on the school bus by an eighth-grader who asked if she was going to be a child molester like her father,” she said.

The judge also expressed doubt about the contention that the relationship was never physical, telling Esterly that he had asked her to make “some unreasonable leaps” about the relationship “that I’m not willing to make.”

Between Nov. 13, 2017, and Feb. 9 Esterly allegedly signed Yu out of school 10 times, which Luu never gave him permission to do.

The two families met through Esterly’s children at church.

On March 5, Luu reported her daughter as a runaway and said she was last seen at 7:09 a.m. that same day in the area of N. 15th and W. Allen streets in Allentown.

Yu and Esterly were returned to the United States via Miami, Fla., by Homeland Security Investigations agents and deputies with the U.S. Marshals Service.

They were found March 17 by agents from Homeland Security Investigations, Policia Federal Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit and the United States Marshals Service in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Esterly was taken into custody by Mexican authorities.

Yu was brought home by Allentown police 4 a.m. March 18.

“Amy refused to come in the house and was taken by police to St. Luke’s Hospital,” Luu said at the time. “She is very unsettled.”

She was taken to KidsPeace and later transferred to a Franklin County Youth Center from which she escaped, only to be located later in Johnstown.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.