Silence Of The Lambs
The New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department has disbarred a convicted attorney
On November 13, 1998, respondent was convicted of multiple offenses after trial by jury, including one count of rape, five counts of sexual assault, five counts of aggravated indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, two counts of false imprisonment and two counts of simple assault, for crimes involving multiple victims. Details of the offenses, including the 11 felonies, reveal that respondent brought two Central American women to his home in Pennsylvania as “mail-order brides” and thereafter imprisoned, raped and sexually abused them behind the barred windows of his home. Respondent was sentenced as noted above and ultimately served 9 years before being released from prison in February 2008.
Respondent was disbarred in Pennsylvania in 2009.
Here
Here, AGC rightly observes that “certain of the crimes of which respondent was convicted, for example, rape, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault, felonies in Pennsylvania, would constitute felonies if committed in New York” (see Penal Law §§ 130.35, 130.65, 130.70). Thus, respondent was disbarred by operation of law at the moment that the Pennsylvania jury convicted him of his crimes (see Matter of Nazor, 228 AD3d 1058, 1061 & n 2 [3d Dept 2024]; Matter of Cornwell, 214 AD3d 1064, 1064 [3d Dept 2023]; Matter of Sobkiewicz, 208 AD3d 938, 938 [3d Dept 2022]). While AGC has not explicitly moved to strike respondent’s name from the roll of attorneys, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact of his felony convictions, which are amply demonstrated in the record before us (see generally Matter of Solny, 213 AD3d 24, 25-26 [1st Dept 2023]; see also Matter of Rahman, 211 AD3d at 63; Matter of Reich, 206 AD3d at 24). Nor are we impeded by respondent’s failure to fulfill his obligation to report the fact of his conviction to this Court
The Pocono Record reported on the criminal case
A Monroe County judge sentenced attorney Donald Young to 4? to 9 years in state prison Tuesday for raping and sexually assaulting two women from Central America he brought to his home in Gilbert.
Prosecutors said Young, convicted of 11 felonies involving the women — Sonia Yamileth Young and Oldalma Martinez — who were sexually abused behind the barred windows of his home, deserved the 10-to-20 year state prison sentence recommended by the county’s probation office.
Young’s lawyer, public defender Michael Mancuso, said he will appeal Young’s conviction before the Superior Court.
“I am completely innocent,” Young told Judge Jerome P. Cheslock before Cheslock handed down his sentence. “I absolutely did not commit any of the crimes with which I am charged.”
Young added, “I’m on a lot of medication which helps me get through this period.” On the table before him was a large plastic bag filled with pill bottles that his lawyers said contained anti-depressants.
Young never mentioned the victims in the case, but he said he will lose his license to practice law as well as his real estate and insurance licenses. He also said the lambs he keeps on a small farm behind his house require his 24-hour a day attention because they soon will give birth.
Prosecutors said they may ask Cheslock to reconsider what they say is a light sentence. They also expressed disappointment that Cheslock gave Young until Feb. 16 to begin serving his sentence.
Mancuso and Assistant District Attorney James F. Marsh painted two vastly different portraits of Young before Cheslock.
Mancuso produced a dozen supporters and friends of Young. They said the 53-year-old lawyer is a good Christian, a decent human being who never raised his voice to anyone.
Each asked for leniency, including the Rev. Frank Schaeffer, formerly of Salem United Methodist Church in Gilbert. Schaeffer said Young had done all the degree work to become an ordained minister.
Marsh, one of the assistant district attorneys on the case, pounced on the character witness statements that Young is a decent man.
Stephan asked Cheslock to put Young in jail on the spot. “He does not deserve to be a free man.”
Stephan added, “I think 10 to 20 years is lenient.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Cheslock imposed Megan’s Law notification requirements on Young. After his release from jail, Young must register his address with state police and continue to do so if he moves.
Megan’s Law, which went into effect in Pennsylvania in April 1996, was named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was sexually assaulted and killed by a neighbor who had assaulted young girls in the past.
Young has another pending trial in federal court in Scranton on charges he paid $3,500 to have one of the women from Honduras smuggled into the country.
The case against Young in both Monroe County Court and federal court was complicated by a sexual relationship that one of the Honduran women had with Dane Eppley of East Stroudsburg, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent who was the lead investigator in the federal case.
Eppley was removed from the case after federal prosecutors learned he had fathered a child with Sonia Yamileth Young, a woman that Donald Young married in Honduras and had two children with.
Eppley and Sonia now live together in East Stroudsburg with their baby.
Mancuso said one of the issues he will raise in his appeal will concern Eppley and the fact that the INS refused to permit him to see Eppley’s 122-page personnel file.
(Mike Frisch)