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”This will never be over for me, no matter where I go or what I do,” said the victim, now 18, as Jose Olivares watched with his attorney from the defense table.
Olivares, 27, of Jersey City, was working security at the hotel when he hung out with the group of upstate New York teens staying there after a day in Manhattan.
Two months ago, he admitted in court that he gave the then-16-year-old boy oral sex as he slept in the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 2013.
“When you think of a school field trip to Little Italy, you think about good food, fun, and friends,” the victim told Superior Court Judge Margaret M. Foti. “Sexual assault is the furthest thing from your mind.
“I was preyed on in a most vulnerable moment, and it has made me question everything I thought to be good and true.”
The Syracuse, NY victim also related his anxiety whenever investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office contacted him from “that unfamiliar New Jersey area code on the phone.”
“I never knew when or where it would happen,” he said. “It was an endless dread.”
Olivares apologized to the victim and his family.
“I was dealing with a lot of stress and my judgment was extremely poor,” he said.
“I lost everything,” Olivares added. “I was discharged from the military, and I lost my job.
“I have been trying to pick myself up again,” he said. “I just found a job two weeks ago — and with that, I will be able to straighten myself out.”
Olivares pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact in exchange for a reduced charge, as well as 364 days in the jail — not prison.
Foti also sentenced him to two years probation and subjected him to the requirements of Megan’s Law registration and reporting and Nicole’s Law — putting him under a permanent restraining order prohibiting contact with the victim or his family.
He’ll also remain on parole supervision for life, must submit a DNA sample to the state database and must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and follow-up services, the judge said.
Defense lawyer S. Emile Lisboa pleaded for leniency based on Olivares’ “profound and deep remorse,” and what he said was a hardship due to his father’s chronic medical condition.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Dion Findley objected. Olivares got considerable leniency when he was allowed to plead to reduced charges, the prosecutor said.
“The original charge was sexual assault with force,” Findley said. That, he said, was “very serious.”
“I believe he can receive effective psychiatric services in jail,” the judge said. “[W]ithout those services, I feel there is a risk to re-offend.”
Superior Court Judge Margaret M. Foti
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Dion Findley
Jose Olivares, defense attorney S. Emile Lisboa, Findley
(STORY / PHOTOS: Daily Voice Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
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