Former Limestone County judge Douglas Patterson will serve at least four years in state prison, part of a 16-year sentence ordered Tuesday at the Limestone County Courthouse.

In all, Patterson was sentenced to two 16-year sentences and a two-year sentence, having pleaded guilty to intentional use of official position or office for personal gain, first-degree financial exploitation of the elderly and third-degree theft of property. Judge Stephen Haddock, who presided over the case, said the two-year sentence for theft will be served concurrently with the first four years of each of the 16-year sentences.

After that, Patterson is sentenced to serve six years on probation. He is further required to pay $72,822.77 in restitution, to be split among the Limestone County Juvenile Court Services Fund; Jessica Hardy, the daughter of an elderly Marine from whom Patterson stole nearly $50,000; and the estate of Rudolph Allen, another man from whose conservatorship account Patterson stole funds.

Haddock said he reviewed multiple documents while determining the length of Patterson’s sentences, including an eight-page report following a presentence investigation, the state attorney general’s recommendation, a letter from Limestone County Circuit Court Judge Robert Baker, a letter from Patterson’s mother and a written stipulation of facts detailing Patterson’s crimes and presented as part of his plea agreement.

Haddock noted that while Patterson has vocalized remorse, his actions up until that point had shown the opposite. He said he didn’t doubt Patterson was remorseful, but it seemed as though Patterson’s remorse stemmed from getting caught or having to let his family know what he’d done.

Patterson’s “apologies and expressions of remorse ring pretty hollow,” Haddock said. The judge added that in 24 years, during which he had presided over “hundreds” of theft cases in Morgan County, he often was presented with a reason why a defendant had committed the crime.

In Patterson’s case, the reason remained elusive. Patterson admitted to writing checks to himself for hundreds and thousands of dollars at a time from the Charles Hardy conservatorship account, then lying to Hardy’s daughter about how much was left in the account for years before getting a loan under false pretenses and paying back less than half of what he’d stolen.

Patterson admitted to beginning his theft from the Limestone County Juvenile Fund just 32 days after becoming a judge, writing 70 checks to himself over the next three years and three months for a total of nearly $50,000 that would have otherwise been spent to help children in the juvenile court system. Records state he used his job to impose extra costs and fees to add to the fund from which he was stealing.

Finally, Patterson admitted to taking money from the estate of Charles Allen, a man for whom Patterson had served as conservator before becoming judge.

“Most of the time, I knew why theft was committed,” Haddock told Patterson in Tuesday’s hearing. He said he often sees cases with people who were uneducated, unemployed, addicted to drugs or alcohol, coming from broken families or without goals or prospects — things he did not see in Patterson’s case. “We’re about a year after you were indicted … still no explanation why you committed the crimes for which you were convicted.”

He said Patterson was held by the public to a higher standard as lawyer and judge, and yet Patterson, for all his being well-educated, well-supported by family and apparently free of addictions, responded by violating not just his oaths as lawyer and judge but the rules of professional conduct, the judicial canon of ethics and criminal laws.

“I recognize the crimes in this case are the first time” Patterson has faced criminal charges beyond traffic citations, but they were not isolated incidents and therefore do not qualify as a true “first offense,” Haddock said. He noted the more than 70 transactions that made up three separated but related crimes and involved three separate victims over a period of six years, each transaction being “intentional, without permission or legal authority.”

“The judicial system has no place for two types of justice — one that applies to the average Joe and” one that applies to men like Patterson, Haddock said before detailing Patterson’s sentence.

After the hearing, Patterson was taken into custody and transported to the Limestone County Jail. It has not been made public which of the state penitentiary facilities Patterson will serve the next four years, but records show his probation will “be supervised by the Limestone County Staff of the State Parole and Probation office.” He has until Dec. 1, 2029, to pay restitution to his victims.