Eric McGowen, 20, last month was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child. 
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A man convicted for his part in the alleged gang rape of a young Liberty County girl is back in police custody. The Gulf Coast Task Force Tuesday arrested Eric McGowen at an apartment in the Greenspoint area. He has been turned over to the Texas Rangers and is being returned to Liberty County.
Law enforcement officials say they had information that McGowen may be staying with family and pulled over a family member during a traffic stop, at which point that person confessed that McGowen had been staying with them.
Investigators say they went to the apartment and surprised McGowen while he was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. He was then taken into custody.
Liberty Co. officials will decide whether any of the family members in Greenspoint will face charges of harboring a fugitive.
McGowen was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 99 years in prison back on August 30. However, he was already free on bail and was not in court when the verdict was read after skipping out during a break in the proceedings. A warrant for his arrest was then issued.
In all, 20 males -- 14 adults and six juveniles -- have been charged in the case. Prosecutors say the 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on at least five occasions from mid-September through early December of 2010. Police began investigating after one of the girl's classmates told a teacher he saw video of her being sexually assaulted in an abandoned trailer.
Testifying using a pseudonym, the victim last month told jurors about an encounter in October 2010 and one the following month in which she said McGowen and several other men and boys took turns sexually assaulting her while recording the encounters on video.
The girl briefly broke down in tears as jurors were shown a few minutes of video of the alleged sexual assault in October 2010.
She described another encounter that November that started in a different Cleveland home and continued at a nearby abandoned trailer. She told jurors that McGowen assaulted her with a beer bottle during that incident.
McGowen, 20, was the only one to go to trial so far. Twelve other defendants -- all six juveniles and six of the adults -- have accepted guilty pleas.
The case sparked outrage in Cleveland, and early on, some residents suggested the girl was partly responsible because they say she wore makeup, looked older than her age and wasn't properly supervised by her parents, drawing widespread condemnation.
The case also has been complicated by a belief among many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black, while the girl is Hispanic.
Stay with Eyewitness News and abc13.com for the latest details.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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