Man sentenced for punching officer at Elizabeth Smart event

An 80-year-old man convicted of battery for punching a police officer who stopped him from approaching kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart with a knife at an Indiana book signing has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. The (Terre Haute) Tribune-Star reports Claude Hudson told a judge on Thursday that he didn’t think he should be locked up at all. A jury convicted him in June of felony battery. Hudson has been representing himself and indicated he would appeal the sentence. Hudson has said in court that he wanted to ask Smart questions so he tried to skip ahead of the January book signing line at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. Smart was 14 in 2002 when snatched from her Salt Lake City bedroom and held for nine months.