Seneca ? A former priest already sentenced to prison for inappropriately touching a 15-year-old boy in 1998 received probation Friday for two counts of inappropriately soliciting the same boy.

Dennis E. Schmitz, who faces a 32-month prison sentence in Douglas County, pleaded guilty in December in Nemaha County to two counts of indecent solicitation of a minor.

A Nemaha County District judge Friday sentenced Schmitz, 41, to 24 months in prison on the first count and 12 months in prison on the second, to be served concurrently.

As part of a plea bargain, the judge suspended the sentence and placed Schmitz on probation for two years, which will begin after he serves the Douglas County sentence.

Douglas County Judge Michael Malone handed down the prison sentence in October despite Schmitz’s plea agreement with prosecutors in Douglas and Nemaha counties, under which he would have received probation in both counties and served 60 days in jail in Nemaha County.

Schmitz is appealing the prison sentence, and a decision from the Kansas Court of Appeals is not expected for a couple of months.

Schmitz, the first Kansas City-area priest to be sentenced to prison on a sex-related charge in more than a decade, previously had told the court how he solicited the boy at a ranch he co-owned in Nemaha County.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas removed Schmitz from his duties as a priest in May.

Schmitz had lived in Lawrence and recruited candidates for the priesthood from the mid-1990s until July 2001.

Schmitz’s victim, now 19, is a Johnson County resident.