By Nick Buglione
Appearing in a press conference last Wednesday alongside her father and Laura Ahearn, founder and executive director of Parents For Megan's Law, the now 21-year-old woman said Maiello's two-year sentence demonstrates how the criminal justice system is failing sex-crime victims.
"His release makes me feel very uneasy for other children, because he will do this again," she said, according to a published report, her face hidden to protect her identity.
Maiello's release has added fuel to the ongoing debate of how sex offenders should be punished and tracked once out of prison.
Maiello, formerly of Lynbrook, served as youth ministry director at St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow from 1999 to 2001. He pleaded guilty in 2003 to raping and sodomizing four teenage parishioners. He was initially arrested after one of his victims, a girl, told First Precinct police that he had sexually abused her in 1999, when she was 15, and another 15-year-old boy a year later.
Maiello was charged with four counts of third-degree rape and four counts of third-degree sodomy. He was slapped with five more third-degree sodomy charges and one additional count of third-degree rape after two more victims came forward alleging abuse.
In exchange for his guilty plea, six sodomy counts and three rape counts were dropped. Serving the remaining charges concurrently, he did two years in prison, and was released last week. Maiello now lives in Gilboa, an upstate New York community, and is registered as a level-three sex offender, considered under the sex-offender registry to be the most dangerous category, comprising those likely to abuse again.
"We're outraged," said Ahearn, whose Suffolk County-based organization Parents for Megan's Law offers education, advocacy and counseling on sexual abuse. "We want to let lawmakers know that the system is failing the victims."
Joy Watson, who prosecuted Maiello and is the district attorney's bureau chief on sex offenses and domestic violence crimes, said Maiello could have gotten off a lot easier under the current law. "He could have received a conditional discharge," she said. "He didn't have to see one day in jail."
A sex offender's sentence depends on the nature and severity of the case, Watson said. Still, she said, it can sometimes be frustrating for a prosecutor to put a sex offender away only to see him walk in a few years. "It can be frustrating," she said. "It's difficult to say, because each case has to be looked at differently."
In the wake of Maiello's release, Parents for Megan's Law is calling on lawmakers to stiffen penalties for sex offenders, Ahearn said. The organization doesn't want them to be able to serve sentences concurrently or get time off their sentence for good behavior.
"Any law which is going to appropriately punish sex offenders would certainly have our support," Watson said.
State Assemblyman David McDonough (R-Merrick), head of the Assembly Minority's Sexual Assault and Violence Education Task Force, agreed that stiffer penalties are in order, but said more can be done to ensure that sex offenders don't strike again once they're out of prison.
McDonough is a strong supporter of civil confinement, which would place sex abuse convicts likely to become repeat offenders in mental institutions for treatment after incarceration. "These people will admit freely to law enforcement that they can't stop," he said. "We do need stronger penalties, but what we need is civil confinement."
A civil confinement bill has previously passed in the state Senate, only to be held up in the Assembly, McDonough said. "In committee, they will very often hold on to a minority member's bill," he said.
Civil libertarians, however, believe civil confinement is not the answer. "If they want to give sex offenders counseling and treatment, why don't they do it while they are in jail?" said Barbara Bernstein, executive director of the Nassau County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "You either are going to lock people up forever or you are going to try to do something to rehabilitate them."
Though she would support stronger jail sentences for sex offenders as long as they are "reasonable," Bernstein said she doesn't think they shouldn't be allowed time off for good behavior, as Ahearn suggests.
A supporter of civil confinement, State Assemblywoman Maureen O'Connell (R-East Williston) thinks the state needs to strengthen its sex-offender registry, established to track sexual predators and notify communities of their presence.
"Why should we just have notification for only the worst sex offenders, level three?" O'Connell said. "We should have notification for all levels: one, two and three."
Civil liberties organizations maintain that the registry already unfairly punishes sex offenders and guarantees recidivism by ensuring that they can never become productive members of society. They also claim that the law inspires acts of violence against the convicted.
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
