PARIS – A 71-year-old Roxbury man was sentenced to just over nine months in prison Thursday for molesting three girls from 1997 to 2002.

Arthur Dwight Haseltine of 220 North Roxbury Road pleaded guilty in May to three counts of unlawful sexual contact with three girls all under age 14. The indictment had charged him with nine counts of unlawful sexual contact.

Haseltine was sentenced in Oxford County Superior Court to nine months and one day, with four years probation. He must also register as a lifetime sex offender, avoid contact with children under the age of 16, and attend sex offender counseling.

The maximum time a prisoner can serve in the Oxford County Jail on a felony is nine months. Longer sentences are served in state prison.

Each of the girls said that Haseltine had touched them over their clothes, and one of the girls said Haseltine had also touched a girl under her clothes. The girls all recalled that Haseltine had invited them to go swimming naked, but none of them did.

“He robbed all of them of their first kiss, touch, love, and instead gave them pain, discontent, confusion and dishonesty,” stated one girl’s mother in a letter to the court.

Haseltine’s wife was present in court to read her own letter.

“I know from personal experience that these children are always going to have problems because of this,” she said.

Haseltine also addressed the court, expressing “deep regret” for his actions. He said he had started to attend counseling sessions as soon as he became aware of how he had affected the lives of the victims and their families.

“I hope that someday she will be able to forgive me,” he said of his wife. “But I will understand if she cannot.”

Haseltine could have been issued consecutive sentences on the felonies, which carry a maximum prison sentence of five years each, but Justice Robert E. Crowley said mitigating factors made Haseltine a more eligible candidate for probation. These factors included a lack of criminal history and Haseltine’s work with a counselor.

Crowley said criminal investigators in the case had “dropped the ball” by letting the case lie dormant between the incidents and the indictment in August 2006. He said penalties in criminal cases are frequently weakened rather than strengthened with the passage of time, and recognized Haseltine for entering a plea.