NEW YORK (AP) -- A tax attorney who paid a woman so he could have sex with her two underage daughters was sentenced Thursday and declared a sex offender.
James Colliton, had pleaded guilty Oct. 2 to second- and third-degree statutory rape and patronizing a prostitute. He received a sentence of one year on each count to run concurrently.
But since he was already jailed for the past 19 months, Colliton, 43, was eligible for immediate release. His lawyer, Howard Greenberg, said he expected the defendant to be released from Rikers Island Thursday.
State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber said Colliton was being declared a Level 3 sex offender, the most serious designation, because in his pre-sentencing interviews he had accepted only legal responsibility for his crimes.
"It is clear that in this statement, there is not moral responsibility for these acts,'' Farber said. The judge said Colliton seemed to believe that he was "saving these girls'' and "doing them a favor by having sex with them.''
Colliton, who is married with five children, was formerly with the prestigious Manhattan law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore.
He admitted when he pleaded guilty that he had sex many times with one girl younger than 15 and another under 17 between Dec. 25, 2000, and March 1, 2005. Colliton also admitted he visited a prostitute younger than 17 between August 2000 and February 2004.
He had faced a possible 30 years in prison if he had been convicted after a trial on a 43-count indictment charging him with several counts of rape and sodomy.
The 38-year-old mother of the two underaged sisters pleaded guilty in April 2006 to endangering the welfare of a child. She admitted she allowed her girls to have sex with Colliton, knew he was giving them money and gifts, and said she had asked him for money for herself.
More Manhattan news...
E-Mail Story
Print Story
