A Port Chester man has been found guilty of sexually abusing a 12-year-old over several months in the village.
The jury in Westchester County Court took less than 90 minutes on June 24 to convict 56-year-old Segundo Pucha Carchi of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child and multiple charges related to his communication with the girl and another woman from the Westchester County jail following his arrest in October 2024 in violation of an order of protection.
The victim could not remember specific dates when the abuse occurred but testified that Pucha Carchi would rub his genitals against hers and touch her breasts and buttocks on multiple occasions from late 2023 until late summer 2024.
Prosecutors Stephanie Baehr and Paige Pirtle succeeded in convincing jurors that there were at least two instances of sexual contact over a period of at least three months, as the top charge required.
Forensic testing found that there was semen on evidence taken from the location where the girl said she was abused. The testing determined that there was a mixture of DNA from the girl and Pucha Carchi but no one else.
Jurors rejected Pucha Carchi’s testimony in which he tried to explain away the DNA evidence by claiming he engaged in sex with an adult woman at that location.
After his arrest Pucha Carchi was barred from any communication with the girl and a woman. But he used other inmates’ phone accounts to call the woman and sought her help getting the charges dismissed. He also got her to facilitate a phone call with the girl.
The calls were recorded and more than a dozen played for the jury. In the call with the girl, she told him she had found a dog but had to give it back when its owners’ claimed it. She testified that Pucha Carchi told her if she helped him get out of jail he would buy her a dog.
The promise of a dog was the basis for the only other felony charge, bribing a witness.
The woman was arrested on misdemeanor charges of tampering with a witness, endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree criminal contempt. She pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution and is expected to be sentenced next month.
The jail calls also included statements in which Pucha Carchi, without specifically admitting the sexual activity, alternately apologized for his behavior, promised it wouldn’t happen again and blamed the devil for his actions.
When he testified Monday, Pucha Carchi denied ever abusing the girl.
Defense lawyers George Kobakhidze and Jessica Hugel focused on the lack of specificity of when the abuse allegedly occurred, questioned the girl’s recollection of what transpired and suggested that if the abuse occurred, others who were around would have been aware of it.
But Baehr argued that the girl had a strong memory of the details that mattered and that Pucha Carchi had engaged in a “manipulative scheme to do everything in his power to escape the consequences of his repulsive behavior.”
Pucha Carchi was returned to the county jail to await sentencing, which Westchester Judge Robert Prisco scheduled for Aug. 11. He faces at least five years in prison and a maximum of 25 years on the top charge but could have up to seven years added if sentenced to a consecutive term for the bribery conviction.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Guilty verdict for Port Chester man in sexual abuse of girl
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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By Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News | USA TODAY Network
