Man Who Raped Stepdaughter For 10 Years Sentenced To 20 Years: DA

CENTER MORICHES, NY — A Center Moriches man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday after raping his stepdaughter for 10 years, beginning when she was 7 years old, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

According to Tierney, the man, 36, was also sentenced to 20 years of post-release supervision, after pleading guilty in June to having committed first-degree course of sexual conduct, for subjecting his stepdaughter to years of sexual abuse.

The District Attorney’s Office is not naming the defendant in order to protect the identity of the child victim, Tierney said.

According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, between 2014 and 2023, the man forcibly raped his stepdaughter on a regular basis starting when she was 7. As time went by, the defendant’s abuse escalated to include anal rape of the child, the DA said.

He sent the child obscene images of himself and demanded that the girl take illicit images of herself and send them to him, the DA said.

In order to ensure he obtained the images, the man threatened to subject the child to more frequent anal rape if she did not comply, Tierney said.

In May 2023, the victim begged her mother not to leave her alone with her stepfather, Tierney said. When her mother asked why, the girl told her mother everything that he had been doing to her, the DA said.

Upon learning this information, the girl and her mother formulated a plan to catch him in the act, Tierney said.

One day, the girl'smother pretended to leave for work but returned minutes later through an unlocked side door, Tierney said. Once inside, she saw the man completely nude and standing over the girl while he attempted to rape her, Tierney said.

The girl's mother stopped him from completing the act, and he was arrested after police were notified, the DA said.

On June 20, the man pleaded guilty to first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, a Class B violent felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis, the DA said.

On July 29, Justice Wilutis sentenced the man to 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of post-release supervision; he was represented by James DeAngelo, who was not immediately available for comment.

"For almost a decade, this defendant betrayed the trust of his family and inflicted immeasurable trauma on an innocent child," Tierney said. "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."