A perverted New Rochelle man will spend the next 21 years in prison after he admitted to a years-long cycle of sexually abusing three children and secretly filming the sickening encounters, prosecutors said Thursday.
Jason Ricketts, 23, was hit with the prison term Thursday after he previously pleaded guilty to sex crimes that started in 2019 when the victims were 12-years-old and lasted until early 2023, the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office said.
He will also have 20 years of supervised release after he gets out of prison and will register as a sex offender.
The creep met his victims in different parts of the area where children gather and then pretended he was younger than he was to make friends with them, the district attorney’s office said.
Ricketts gained their trust and even used illegal substances with them before he began engaging in sex acts with the victims and filmed it, prosecutors said.
District Attorney Mimi Rocah said during a press conference in some instances, Ricketts recorded the victims secretly.
When the victims wanted the abuse to end, Ricketts cruelly threatened to post the footage and images on various social media accounts like Snapchat.
One victim said in court Thursday through an assistant district attorney that he met Ricketts when he was only 8 before the abuse started years later.
“You stole years of my life from me…. Not only did your actions affect me, but you affected others who once called you their friend; but you weren’t really a true friend, you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing…a predator,” the victim said, which Ricketts nodded to in court, according to The Journal News.
Another victim called Ricketts “a disgusting human being.”
“Every time I tried to make a new friend, you would blackmail me and try to scare me…. I am not afraid of you anymore. After today, I hope I never see you again,” the second victim said.
Ricketts apologized in court Thursday to the victims and his own family, The Journal News reported. While he reportedly said he didn’t think the victims would forgive him, he believes God already has.
Ricketts pleaded guilty in January to two counts of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, second-degree criminal sexual act and promoting obscene sexual performance by a child.
He was arrested in January 2023 after New Rochelle police and other agencies seized multiple devices from the defendant’s home. Rickett’s phone had a photo vault — disguised as a calculator app — that had video and photos of him performing the sexual acts on three children, the district attorney’s office said.
“After years of preying upon children and inflicting unspeakable trauma on his victims, this defendant has been brought to justice and removed from our community,” Rocah said in a statement.
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