An Arizona man who was on the FBI's Most Wanted list has been sentenced to nine years in prison for kidnapping and beating his mother-in-law in Oxnard in 2004.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Bruce Clark on Wednesday described the crime as a "very serious case" before sentencing 30-year-old Gary Edward Lasher of Seligman, Ariz.

Lasher is facing child molestation, drug and other felony charges in Arizona.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Kim Gibbons said today that Lasher got the highest sentence allowed by law.

"It wasn't high enough. It was the most that I could get," Gibbons said.

According to police, Lasher was trying to get information about his estranged wife when he beat and kidnapped her mother, who is in her 60s.

She was tied up and stuffed into the trunk of a car. As it was going south on Pacific Coast Highway, she managed to wiggle her fingers to signal passing motorists. At least one driver called 911.

The victim escaped when her kidnapper stopped to beat her again and didn't shut the trunk completely, according to police. She leapt from the moving car.

Lasher eluded capture for more than a year before he was arrested in Mexico in October 2005. The FBI tipped off Mexican police that he was in the resort city of Playa del Carmen.

Gibbons said he believes Arizona authorities are in the process of getting Lasher extradited to Arizona to face the felony charges there.

In Arizona, authorities say Lasher raped his wife and occasionally beat her unconscious. Police say they have video of him molesting a 9-year-old girl and attacking his wife. Images of child pornography were allegedly recovered from his computer.

The FBI might file charges against Lasher for interstate flight to avoid prosecution, Gibbons said.

"He should be in prison for a long time. He is a dangerous man," Gibbons said.

According to Oxnard police, Lasher kidnapped his mother-in-law on Feb. 21, 2004, at a house in the 1400 block of Gazenia Court.

Lasher pleaded guilty in June in Ventura County Superior Court to charges of kidnapping, assault by means likely to cause great bodily harm, and first-degree residential burglary, county records show.

On Wednesday, Lasher's attorney, Donna Forry with the Public Defender's Office, told the judge that an eight-year sentence is just punishment under the circumstances. Forry didn't return calls for comment today.

Lasher was in the courtroom inside a large metal cage where jail inmates who are in custody are kept.

He was listed on the FBI's Most Wanted list and profiled on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

In Mexico, Lasher worked as a kite-surfing instructor, authorities said. They said he had recently proposed in Mexico to a European woman, and he planned to move to Europe with her.