Tilden, Neb. ? A 63-year-old northwest Kansas man convicted earlier this year of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl has been arrested.

Carl Benjamin Alvis of Hays, Kan., was arrested Friday by the Nebraska State Patrol with assistance from Tilden police, the patrol said.

After a state trooper saw the vehicle Alvis was thought to be driving at a motel in Tilden, he was arrested and taken to the Madison County Jail to await extradition to Kansas, the patrol said.

The state patrol had been contacted Friday by the sheriff’s office in Ellis County, Kan., with information that Alvis might be in the Oakdale area.

Alvis was convicted there of the assault in February, but was released pending sentencing. He failed to appear for sentencing April 15.

Alvis had been released while awaiting trial in November because he needed heart surgery and Ellis County Atty. Tom Drees said he couldn’t justify taxpayers picking up the cost of the surgery.

Alvis told the trooper he had been in Nebraska about three months, and said he had been in Oakdale, Tilden, Neligh, Fremont, North Platte, Valentine and Plainview, the patrol said.

The state patrol was to contact law enforcement agencies in those communities about unsolved crimes, especially any sex crimes involving minors.

He may have used his brother’s name, William Alvis, while in Nebraska, the patrol said.