Posted on 06/16/2004 9:25:09 AM PDT by NYer
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _ A father was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison Wednesday for raping his 11-year-old daughter, who later hung herself.
Timothy Lucie, 46, stood stoically as Onondaga County Judge William Walsh imposed back-to-back sentences of 25 years to life for his conviction on first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges. Lucie said nothing before Walsh sentenced him. His wife, Andrea Lucie, hurried from the courtroom in tears, refusing to talk to reporters. She testified in her husband's defense.
``In all my years on this planet, I've never been at a loss for words. Today, I am,'' Walsh said. ``My sentence will have to speak for me.'' Walsh said he would recommend that Lucie serve his sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility, in a special program that isolates inmates who may be at risk from other prisoners because of the crimes they committed.
Lucie was convicted last month following an eight-day trial. He also was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child. He has appealed his conviction. Lucie was accused of sexually assaulting his daughter, Valerie, in the shower at their Syracuse home Sept. 30. Hours later her 8-year-old brother found her hanging from her bedpost by a dog collar and leash in what police said was an apparent suicide.
A furniture business owner, Lucie confessed to the rape after a six-hour interrogation on Oct. 13. He then recanted as police prepared to put the confession on videotape. Lucie claimed his confession was coerced by police, who he said threatened to arrest his wife and take away his four younger sons if he didn't admit to the sexual attack. Defense attorney Ken Moynihan had little to say, other than objecting to prosecutors' characterization that Lucie was not remorseful about this daughter's death.
Moynihan said Lucie ``deeply misses'' his daughter, but prosecutors never gave him the chance to properly grieve because they immediately made him the subject of a criminal investigation. Chief Assistant District Attorney Christine Garvey asked Walsh to give Lucie 50 years in prison, saying he ``deserved every second in state prison that this court can sentence him to.''
Garvey said there is typically a time at sentencing when family members are allowed to speak on behalf of the victim. ``But there is no one from Valerie Lucie's family to be that child's voice. It is truly sad. An 11-year-old is dead and she doesn't have anybody from her family _ not her aunts or her uncles, or her grandparents, to say what a wonderful child she was, how she was loved and how she will be missed,'' Garvey said.
Instead, Garvey read a short letter composed by Leslie Plucknette, Valerie's former third-grade teacher at Fairbanks Road Elementary School in the Churchville-Chili School District near Rochester. Plucknette sat through the entire trial and was in her usual second-row seat for Wednesday's sentencing. Plucknette's letter described Valerie as an engaging, excitable child, ``a petite, little girl with a smile as wide as her braids were long.'' Plucknette said Valerie ``sang with the voice of an angel,'' and was the star of her third-grade class' performance of ``Charlotte's Web.''
After court, Plucknette stood in the hallway, showing off a photograph of Valerie at a party with some friends. ``If he stays in jail for 50 years, that would be justice,'' she said.
Several jurors also attended the sentencing. Foreman Michael Spado said he, too, was there for Valerie. ``That poor little girl only had 11 years. Fifty years is a satisfactory sentence but it can't bring Valerie back,'' Spado said. Spado said the jury was not allowed to consider Valerie's death as it deliberated the case. However, Spado said he personally held Lucie responsible for Valerie's death.
AP-ES-06-16-04 1209EDT
David Westerfield was questioned for 19 or more hours, without sleep or rest, without a lawyer, and I saw very few questioning his conviction.....
yet the six hours brings out the most sympathetic freepers....
Thanks for the additional information. Scum is too nice a word for these two.
The suicide does sound suspicious. A dog leash on the end of bed???? It's scary to know people like these are out here among us.
It also seems strange that the girl had a habit of hanging her stuffed animals with shoestrings from her bedpost, just as she was found?
What the article said:
Timothy Lucie said his daughter routinely tied shoestrings and other things around the necks of her stuffed animals and hung them from the canopy of her bed, a Syracuse police officer told jurors Tuesday as testimony in Lucie's trial began.
First: You beleive this statement wholehartedly and treat it as a fact when it is nothing more than a statement from the Defendant. The same defendant who already said he lied in his written confession. I guess its perfectly rational to select the parts of Mr. Lucie's statement you think supports him and ignore the remainder incriminating portion.
Second: Its not strange at all that little girls will decorate their bedroom and bedpost by hanging stuffed animals from the bedposts.
The girl is dead - leave her be.
Both of them lied. One of them did so in court. The other did so to the police. At no time during his interrogation did Lucie invoke his right to remain silent or his right to counsel, both of which he was mirandized on. Lucie voluntarily submitted to polygraph following his arrest. He failed it. Prior to trial, both counsel agreed to the trial judge's instruction to leave the polygraph issue alone unless defense brought it up first. Defense brought it up in front of the jury, whereupon prosecution brought up the fact that Lucie had failed the polygraph. Defense objected and was overruled.
Did you miss the part that he failed a polygraph before the interogation commenced.
Well .. the laws aside .. I guess the possibility of her own abuse is a reason, plus she was the only girl.
At least she's with the Lord - which is a vastly better place than her parents provided for her.
What I mean is that sodomy includes oral sex,not only anal sex.If he coerced her into performing oral sex,that would still be rape.Hence the rape and sodomy charge.The articles are very vague as to what type of sodomy took place.They point out that only some "exterior" wounds are present around her private area,but didn't say if the sodomy charge had any thing to do with forced anal sex.
Si.
Gracias.
Polygraph is well known to be little better than tea leaves. Given that, maybe he will win a new trial based on incompetency of counsel.
little better => NO better
You don't believe in tea leaves? ;-)
As far as predictive power, I think they are in a dead heat with coffee grounds.
Needs to be separated from other inmates? He won't live long; no one likes a child rapist. They're lower in the prison hierarchy than plain ol' pedophiles. Especially if you're a father who raped and sodomized his own little girl. Timothy Lucie won't be for long on this earth, less than 50 years. The SOB will meet His Maker soon.
You realize of course that whether or not, in absolute truth, he did it, won't matter. What will matter is what the jury voted.
The jury thought the evidence pointed to his guilt. Of course his daughter may have committed suicide cause she couldn't bear to live with the thought of her father being wrongfully convicted, not that he did it to her. In truth, we'll never know exactly what happened.
Juries have been swayed by emotionalism before. This isn't 12 independent votes, they are a group, and skilled prosecuting lawyers and defense attorneys both know how to pitch to that dynamic.
Whether it's better than everything else is of no consequence compared to whether it actually did come up with the truth.
As depicted here the conviction looks fishy, and if there is media bias (rather than sloppy recording), given his articulated Christian bent, I'd think it would be firmly on the side of "off with his head."
If he is innocent, I say may God and his conscience firmly uphold him through the years of arduous appeals and legal work that may be required, and if there was funny business on the government's part may all involved shrink to ignominy in the most public shame. But if he is guilty, may he repent tomorrow then go right away to be with the Lord.
sloppy recording => sloppy REPORTING
Thanks for the information, I was unaware of "Jenna's Law". I always fear that some ACLU lawyer will get a scum like this out before their time is up, and they return to prey on the innocent.
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