A New Bedford man will spend up to 20 years behind bars thanks in part to the Bristol County District Attorney's Office's new support dog. According to CBS 12 in Providence, 44 year old Lawrence Trahan, was convicted earlier this month of aggravated rape of a child and battery of a person under the age of 14. Detectives began investigating trahan in December 2017 when the victim, a 10-year-old girl, first came forward after being sexually assaulted more than 20 times, the DA's office said the victim struggled to talk about what Trahan did to her but that's when the DA's office brought in chief, a support dog whose job is to comfort children during forensic interviews, to help ease her anxiety it worked and, as a result of the victim's testimony, trahan was sentenced to serve between 15 and 20 years in state prison, followed by five years of supervised release. The judge also barred Trahan from having any unsupervised contact with children and ordered to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.