STATE SUPREME COURT
Sex abuse case ends with discharge
LOCKPORT — A former Town of Niagara resident who appeared close to his second consecutive acquittal in a child sexual abuse case pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Monday after a juror’s illness caused a mistrial.
David W. Ferry Jr., 39, admitted to endangering the welfare of a child and was immediately granted a conditional discharge by State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr.
The condition was that Ferry carry out his plan to move to Bradyville, Tenn., and get a job. Kloch said he might reconsider if Ferry doesn’t hold a job there for a year.
The jury of eight women and four men had told Kloch on Friday they were deadlocked, but Kloch advised them to think things over during the weekend and come back to court Monday.
Over the weekend, one of the female jurors fell ill. The only alternate juror had already been excused.
After the ill woman informed the court that the soonest she could see a doctor was Wednesday, Kloch pulled the plug on the trial, and Assistant District Attorney Robert A. Zucco obtained District Attorney Michael J. Violante’s permission to offer the misdemeanor plea.
Kloch talked to the 11 other jurors and reported that there was “a vast majority” in favor of acquitting Ferry.
Last April, a jury in Kloch’s court acquitted Ferry on a charge of sexually molesting a 6-year-old girl.
The misdemeanor admission gives Ferry a criminal record, but he does not have to register as a sex offender. “You have a lot to be grateful to your attorney for,” Kloch told Ferry, referring to Assistant Public Defender Michele G. Bergevin. “Some people might say you skirted a bullet. I don’t know. You were acquitted in a fair trial in my court.”
Ferry was charged with two counts of second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of forcible touching.
The first two charges accused him of a string of sexual incidents with a now 18-year-old girl from 1997 to 2001, and also from 2001 to 2003. The touching charge stems from an incident with her April 10, 2007. That was the incident which led to his misdemeanor plea..
The three abuse counts accused Ferry of separate incidents in 2005 with a boy then 9 years old.
Those charges survived from an original 10-count indictment involving a total of four children. Charges involving two of the four were dismissed last summer.
In another sex case Monday, Lindsey Brown, 21, of Weston Avenue, Niagara Falls, also pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child, and was to be sentenced July 13 by Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III.
Brown had been indicted on charges that he had sexual contact with a teenage girl March 29, 2008, in an apartment on 87th Street in Niagara Falls.
However, defense attorney E. Earl Key said the prosecution case was weakened by the deaths of two adult witnesses.
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