A 52-year-old Westchester County man was sentenced to up to six years in prison after pleading guilty to a dozen charges related to a 2019 child sex abuse case in Port Chester, prosecutors said Friday.
John Passaretti, of Pleasantville, admitted taking sexually explicit photos of a young child, the daughter of an acquaintance, at the family's home. He used his familiarity with the family to create a scenario in which he would be alone for several moments with the child he abused. A motion-triggered security camera captured the abuse on video, prosecutors said.
In a victim impact statement read at sentencing, the victim's mother said her children have been traumatized by the experience.
“My children were trusting and friendly, fearless to explore but now, instead I witness fear upon my children’s faces every time the [door]bell rings,” she said.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
The victim's father spoke of his anxiety about the many traumatizing impacts of the abuse on his daughter: "Imagine how this must feel when something of this magnitude happens in your own home while you are there."
Passaretti will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release. He had been held at the Westchester County Jail since his arrest and pleaded guilty to charges of using a child in a sexual performance, promoting an obscene performance by a child, promoting a sexual performance by a child and possessing both types of performances, as well as first-degree sexual abuse.
The charges amount to a total of 11 counts, every one of them felonies.
Local
"This was a terrible crime that traumatized a young child and had a devastating impact on the entire family,” Westchester District Attorney Miriam Rocah said in a statement. "Crimes against children are every parent’s nightmare and this case is a perfect example of how perpetrators of child sex abuse often manipulate relationships of trust. We must do all we can in law enforcement to prevent these and hold perpetrators accountable."
