HILLSBORO — A 25-year-old man was sentenced Monday, Nov. 28, to more than nine years in prison for stealing a minivan with a baby inside and abandoning the 9-month-old boy near an Oregon City park on a hot summer day in July.

Marcus Esa Paul, of Tualatin, received 110 months behind bars, plus three years post-prison supervision, after a jury convicted him Sept. 30 in Washington County Circuit Court of kidnapping, criminal mistreatment and car theft.

Judge Oscar Garcia cited the “aggravated nature of his actions and the vulnerability of the child” when issuing Paul’s sentence.

Early in the morning on July 27, Paul jumped in the driver’s seat of Peter Keyser’s still-running Kia Sedona minivan, which was parked at Oregon Dog Rescue in Tualatin. Keyser, a father of six and a tax compliance manager who trains dogs for fun, was exchanging foster puppies with a friend. His then 9-month-old son was sleeping inside the minivan with the air-conditioning on.

About 30 minutes after Paul fled in the minivan — which Keyser and police were tracking using the GPS of a cellphone that was still inside — Paul abandoned the baby near the edge of a steep slope by Barclay Park in Oregon City. A woman walking her dog found the baby, police said.

The road was unshaded, police noted in the probable-cause affidavit, and on that day, the area was experiencing a heat wave, with temperatures later reaching 100 degrees. The child was “miraculously” unharmed, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office wrote in court documents.

Keyser and his wife, the baby’s mother, sat through the trial and sentencing.

“It was hard reliving it over again in trial but good to explain my side of the story,” Keyser told The Oregonian in October. “I’m happy for it to be over and behind me.”

In September, a car thief or thieves stole a Honda Civic with a 7-year-old girl inside in Portland after her parents stopped the car at a U-Haul branch at Southeast 49th Avenue and Powell Boulevard.

Paul also has pleaded not guilty in a 2020 Multnomah County case in which he faces charges that include unauthorized use of a vehicle, possession of a stolen vehicle and two counts of fourth-degree assault.