WAKULLA COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) — A convicted rapist who was recaptured after escaping from the Wakulla County Jail along with two other inmates has been sentenced to life in prison on the original charges that led to his incarceration.
Donald Cotterman has been found guilty of armed burglary, grand theft of firearm, and grand theft. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Cotterman was one of three inmates who escaped from the Wakulla County Jail in November 2017 through a breach of the ceiling of the jail's law library. One of the inmates, Casey Martina, was apprehended just days after escaping. The other two, Cotterman and Joel Cooper, remained on the run for more than three months until they were each tracked down and arrested one-by-one.
Cotterman was the last of the men to get caught. He was additionally charged with escape, failure to report change of address as a registered sex offender and several other charges related to failure to appear in court.
According to arrest documents, Cotterman was originally booked into the Wakulla County Jail in April 2013 after he broke into a Crawfordville home on Friendship Church Road a year earlier and stole a flat screen, a jewelry box with thousands of dollars worth of items inside, a laptop, a Xbox gaming system, and a 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun. Arrest documents note his prior name was Donald Lick, but he somehow managed to change his name in 1998.
In 1995, Cotterman was convicted of sexual battery on a victim under 16 in Leon County. Five years later, he was convicted of rape and another sexual offense in Ohio.
