Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that a 20-year-old East Hampton man[1] pleaded guilty to Rape in the First Degree, for engaging in sexual intercourse with a child, beginning when she was 11 years old.
The District Attorney is not naming the defendant in order to protect the identity of the child victim.
“This defendant groomed an 11-year-old child for the specific purpose of sexually abusing her,” said District Attorney Tierney. “Thanks to the collaboration with the East Hampton Town Police Department, we were able to secure both a conviction and significant prison sentence, while still sparing the child from having to testify.”
According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, the defendant was 18 years old at the time he met the victim, who was then 11 years old. The defendant began to communicate with the victim over the phone and told her that she was his girlfriend. In November 2021, the defendant began to ask the victim if she would have sex with him, and in December 2021, he raped her for the first time. The defendant raped the victim approximately eight times between December 2021 and January 2022. The sexual abuse ended when the victim told her aunt, who notified the police. The defendant was later arrested by the East Hampton Town Police Department.
On February 14, 2024, the defendant pleaded guilty to Rape in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony, before County Court Judge, the Honorable Karen M. Wilutis. The defendant is due back in court on March 15, 2024, and is expected to be sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 15 years of post-release supervision. He will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison. He is being represented by Andrew Friedman, Esq.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Ashley Moruzzi of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau with investigative assistance from Detective Frank Sokolowski of the East Hampton Town Police Department.
Criminal complaints and indictments are merely accusatory instruments. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.