CENTER MORICHES MAN SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON FOR RAPING HIS STEPDAUGHTER FOR YEARS

(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that a 36-year-old Center Moriches man,[1] was sentenced to 20 years in prison, followed by 20 years of post-release supervision, after pleading guilty in June to having committed Course of Sexual Conduct in the First Degree, for subjecting his stepdaughter to years of sexual abuse, beginning when she was seven years old.

“For almost a decade, this defendant betrayed the trust of his family and inflicted immeasurable trauma on an innocent child,” said District Attorney Tierney. “While no punishment can ever fully heal the physical and emotional wounds inflicted, this sentence will ensure that the defendant is no longer able to abuse this survivor, her family, or anyone else. The offender will be in prison where he belongs.”

According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, between 2014 and 2023, the defendant forcibly raped his stepdaughter on a regular basis starting when she was seven years old. As time went by, the defendant’s abuse escalated to include anal rape of the child. The defendant sent the child obscene images of himself and demanded that the victim take illicit images of herself and send them to him. In order to ensure he obtained the images, the defendant threatened to subject the child to more frequent anal rape if she did not comply.

In May 2023, the victim begged her mother not to leave her alone with the defendant. When her mother asked why, the child told her mother everything that the defendant had been doing to her. Upon learning this information, the victim and her mother formulated a plan to catch the defendant in the act. One day, the victim’s mother pretended to leave for work but returned minutes later through an unlocked side door. Once inside, she saw the defendant completely nude and standing over the victim while he attempted to rape her. The victim’s mother stopped the defendant from completing the act, and the defendant was arrested after police were notified.

On June 20, 2024, the defendant pleaded guilty to Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis.

On July 29, 2024, Justice Wilutis sentenced the defendant to 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of post-release supervision. He was represented by James DeAngelo, Esq.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Michelle Chiuchiolo of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau, with investigative assistance from Detective Michelle Speed of the Suffolk County Police Department’s Special Victims Section.

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Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.

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