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Joel Patrick Courtney, 41, has been given the maximum sentence of 18 years in the 2004 rape and kidnapping of an Albuquerque woman.

Courtney was sentenced today in state District Court in Albuquerque under a plea agreement after a bizarre sentencing in which Courtney attempted to thwart going forward with the case.

He was charged with criminal sexual penetration and kidnapping in the Nov. 29, 2004, sexual assault of a 22-year-old student at knifepoint. Prosecutors says she was walking home from work near Garfield Avenue and Harvard Drive Southeast when she was forced into a red Honda Civic, tied up with shoestring, gagged and sexually assaulted.

Courtney argued he could not go forward with the plea for several reasons: He claimed he had not been given his medication today; he argued he had been coerced into pleading guilty because of the intensive media coverage and the affect it was having on his children, who live in the metro area; he said he had not been allowed to read a diagnostic evaluation that had been conducted over the last 60 days.

He also argued he had lost faith in his attorney, John McCall, and wanted a new one.

Judge Kenneth Martinez disagreed with all of that and proceeded to sentence him to nine years for rape and 18 for kidnapping. Under the plea agreement, those two sentences will run concurrently.

Courtney is accused in the May 24, 2004, disappearance of 19-year-old Brooke Wilberger, a Brigham Young University student visiting a relative in Oregon. Her body has not been found.

Courtney has also been indicted on charges of attempted kidnapping and attempted murder involving two Oregon State students who say they were approached the same day Wilberger disappeared.

The district attorney from Oregon was in court today and said he will immediately file for a "new governor's warrant for extradition." He said his goal is to have Courtney in Oregon within 90 days to stand trial for the two cases.