Any remorse yet? Irate judge nixes deal to let unrepentant counselor avoid jail for raping 3 teens
Michael Daly
November 15th 2010
Justice got a do-over on Monday.
A judge used a rapist's remorseless rationalizations to throw out a plea deal that would have let the unrepentant sicko escape jail for sexually assaulting three teens.
That deal was all the more disgraceful because hulking Tony Simmons was a counselor at Manhattan Family Court, and the victims were girls under his supervision.
Even as the public was outraged, Simmons tried to minimize his crimes in a routine interview conducted before what was to have been Monday's formal sentencing.
That was all the legal reason a furious Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Cassandra Mullen needed to void a six-week-old deal that never should have been made in the first place.
"This defendant does not admit his guilt and, more alarming, has no understanding that his conduct was wrong and perhaps, most outrageously, blames the victims, demonstrating a depravity that shocks the conscience of this court," Mullen said.
Mullen tossed out an agreement that let Simmons off with probation. She offered him three years in prison, and when he did not immediately accept, she ordered the case set for trial.
One of the victims, Ashley, sounded more than prepared to take the stand against the conscienceless counselor who raped her in an elevator in the basement of the Family Court building when she was a 15-year-old on remand for a minor charge.
"I was ready from day one to testify against this guy," Ashley, now 20, said from home on Monday. "It's not hard to speak the truth."
Back when the plea deal was made, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. blasted Mullen for being "outrageously lenient," only to learn his own assistant prosecutor had failed to object to the agreement on the record.
The assistant, Amir Vonsover, was fired. Mullen reviewed the presentence report prepared after the plea, no doubt looking for legal reasons to nix the deal.
She found them in Simmons' own words to the Department of Probation.
Whatever happened six weeks ago, Mullen was everything a judge should be on Monday. She recounted with outrage of her own what the rapist had said about his attacks on the three teens in the Family Court building just across the street from her courtroom.
Simmons told Probation that the crimes "just happened." He proved himself a classic pedophile as he sought to blame the victims, saying they had enticed him by flirting and smiling and giving him looks. He was at his sickest when describing the attack on Ashley.
"Responding to why he committed the offense, he said in addition to mutual attraction, 'The situation looked good,'" the judge reported, adding, "Of course, it did for him, now that the victim had been isolated in the basement."
The judge went on, "Perhaps the single most disturbing thing the defendant said about the indictment was when he indicated that the victim said to him, 'Thanks, I needed that,' like she enjoyed it. It's just incredible that the defendant tries to make it sound like he did the victim a favor."
Ashley was no less incredulous when she heard what Simmons had said of the attack.
"Disgusting," she said. "Crazy."
If the judge had just been grandstanding for the media, she would have remanded Simmons as a predator and a public menace, but she continued his $100,000 bail. A man whose words to Probation had cost him a deal beyond lenient left court without uttering a syllable, his face expressionless throughout, save for a deepening furrow of his brow.
He exited to the street on the side facing the Family Court building where he had preyed on Ashley and the others. Ashley now dares to hope for justice.
"I can't wait to see the outcome," she said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/11/15/2010-11-15_any_remorse_yet_irate_judge_nixes_deal_to_let_unrepentant_counselor_avoid_jail_f.html
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