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The man, a 20-year-old from East Hampton, entered his guilty plea on Wednesday, Feb. 14, the Suffolk County District Attorney announced.
According to his guilty plea, the man (who has not been named in order to protect the victim’s identity) met and began talking to his victim when he was 18 and she was 11. He would talk to the girl over the phone and tell her that she was his girlfriend.
Then, in November 2021, he began to ask the girl if she would have sex with him.
The DA’s Office said that he raped the girl for the first time in December 2021.
Between December 2021 and January 2022, the man raped his victim approximately eight times. It ended when the victim told her aunt about the sexual abuse, who then reported it to police.
“This defendant groomed an 11-year-old child for the specific purpose of sexually abusing her,” said District Attorney Raymond A Tierney.
“Thanks to the collaboration with the East Hampton Town Police Department, we were able to secure both a conviction and a significant prison sentence, while still sparing the child from having to testify.”
The man pleaded guilty to first-degree rape, which a violent felony.
He is due back in court for sentencing on Friday, March 15, where he is expected to be given 10 years in prison, followed by 15 years of post-release supervision in addition to his being registered as a sex offender.
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