Wednesday, January 19, 2005

D.A. BROWN: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SENTENCED IN ABSENTIA TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON FOR RAPING CHILD IN HIS HOME

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a Brooklyn public elementary school principal has been sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for raping a female child in his Queens Village residence over a five year period between September, 1998 and July 1, 2003.

The District Attorney said that the defendant was slated to receive a 12 year prison sentence and received an increase to 20 years in prison when he failed to appear in court today for sentencing. A bench warrant has been issued for his arrest.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant betrayed the trust of this young child when he engaged in sexual relations in his residence over a five year period. He stole her childhood and will be imprisoned as punishment for his crime when apprehended.”

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Leroy Johnson, 42, of 159-16 Meyer Avenue, Jamaica, the principal of Public School 25 in Brooklyn. The defendant pled guilty on November 18, 2004 to Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the First Degree and Endangering the Welfare of a Child before Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron who earlier today imposed a determinate 20 year prison sentence.

According to the charges, the defendant, between September 1998 and July 1, 2003, at his residence, engaged in a course of sexual conduct involving the child which included almost weekly sexual intercourse and other sex acts from the time she was nine until she was 14.

The District Attorney said that an investigation by detectives of the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Squad in conjunction with the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau was initiated in response to a report of the allegations made to the New York State Child Abuse Hotline. The Queens District Attorney’s Office continued the investigation and obtained DNA evidence connecting the defendant to the child’s sexual abuse.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Eric C. Rosenbaum, Chief of the District Attorney’s DNA Prosecutions Unit of the Special Victims Bureau prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Marjory D. Fisher, Bureau Chief, and Kenneth M. Appelbaum and Lucinda C. Suarez, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney Daniel A. Saunders.