A perverted New Rochelle man will spend the next 21 years in prison after admitting to sexually abusing three children over several years and secretly filming the disturbing encounters, prosecutors announced Thursday. did.
Jason Ricketts, 23, pleaded guilty to sex crimes that began in 2019, when the victim was 12 years old, and continued into early 2023, but was sentenced to prison on Thursday, according to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. I received it.
He will also be given 20 years of supervised release after he is released from prison and registers as a sex offender.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, the creepy man met the victims at various locations in the area where children gathered and then pretended to be younger than he actually was in order to befriend the children.
Prosecutors said Ricketts gained the victims’ trust, began having sex with them, and sometimes used illegal drugs before filming them.
District Attorney Mimi Roca said. during a press conference In some cases, Ricketts secretly recorded his victims.
When the victims asked for the abuse to stop, Ricketts brutally threatened to post the footage and images on various social media accounts, including Snapchat.
One of the victims said in court Thursday, through an assistant district attorney, that she met Ricketts when she was just 8 years old, before the abuse began several years later.
“You stole years of my life from me…. Your actions not only affected me, but others who once called you a friend. But , you weren’t a real friend, you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing…a predator,” the victim said, to which Ricketts nodded in court. According to Journal News.
Another victim called Ricketts a “disgusting person.”
“Every time I tried to make new friends, you tried to intimidate and scare me… I’m not afraid of you anymore. After today, I hope we never see each other again.” said the second victim.
Ricketts apologized to the victim and his own family in court Thursday, according to the Journal News. He reportedly did not think his victims would ever forgive him, but he believes God has already forgiven him.
Ricketts pleaded guilty in January to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child, second-degree criminal sexual conduct and promoting lewd sexual conduct by a child.
He was arrested in January 2023 after New Rochelle police and others seized multiple devices from his home. The district attorney’s office said Ricketts had a photo archive on his phone disguised as a calculator app that contained videos and photos of him performing sex acts on three children. .
“This defendant, who for years preyed on children and caused untold trauma to his victims, must be brought to justice and removed from our community,” Roca said in a statement.
