Photo courtesy of the NYS Offender Registry
James W. Cleary, 45, of Mohegan Lake was arrested Sunday after allegedly sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy.
Yorktown Police have arrested a convicted sex offender from Mohegan Lake and charged him with the sexual abuse of an 11-year old boy.
According to police, James W. Cleary, 45, was arrested Sunday following a call from a White Plains woman who reported that he had sexually abused her 11-year-old son on Aug. 16.
Cleary was arraigned in Yorktown Town Court on Tuesday night. Prosecutor Courtney Johnson said at the arraignment that the original charges against Cleary – second degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child – had been replaced with first-degree sexual abuse, a class D felony. The new charge, Johnson said, came after prosecutors further investigated Cleary’s criminal history, including several probation violations.
Cleary is already registered in the state as a Level Two sex offender. He was arrested in 1999 after sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy on Long Island. He was convicted of attempted first-degree sexual abuse and subsequently served a four-month prison sentence in Nassau County jail.
According to the woman who reported the alleged crime on Sunday, she and her son had gotten to know Cleary and his brother while visiting the siblings’ auto repair shop in Valhalla. The brothers, who live together as well, invited the mother and son on a boat ride on the Hudson River on Saturday. The mother declined, but allowed her son to accompany Cleary, his brother and his brother’s children. Afterward, Cleary convinced the mother to allow her son to spend the night at his Mohegan Lake residence.
According to police, the abuse took place around 2:50 a.m. Sunday when Cleary allegedly tried to force his hand down the boy’s pants. The boy told his mother about the alleged incident the following morning.
Cleary was not arrested until later that evening at around 5:30 p.m. when Yorktown Officer Claudine Rosenbergen found Cleary’s car parked on Decatur Road in Mohegan Lake.
Cleary’s attorney, Francis O’Reilly, said that his client and the boy both deserved to be treated with respect.
“My client is charged with a very serious crime,” he said. “As such, he’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. Very importantly, the complaining witness here is entitled to privacy.”
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