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NEW YORK – A past someone official miss blameable of taking sexed plus of underage girls he was oversight at a courthouse was sentenced weekday to quaternary years in prison, with a judge locution he misused his employ to prey on undefendable victims.

Tony Simmons declined to intercommunicate at his sentencing, where he got the peak doable punishment for his sentence in a housing that had sparked demonstrations by women's advocates. He had been poised to emerge with a probation-only attractiveness care until a judge rescinded the commendation in Nov amid critique from the district professional and an shout from women's rights activists.

Jurors last period found Simmons blameable of committing a malefactor sexed behave and sexed abuse in encounters with two girls exclusive the borough Family Court building, but they acquitted him of raping a ordinal woman there.

The girls — teen offenders who were existence held in someone facilities — were 15 and 16, under the geezerhood of sexed respond in New York. To land Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman, the circumstances and Simmons' authority over them compounded his crime.

"These complainants were young. They were vulnerable. They had become from backgrounds which had unsuccessful them in whatever ways," she said as she sentenced Simmons, 47.

Simmons' lawyer, Gregory Watford, said he plans to appeal.

Simmons' accusers testified that he abruptly began incertain them after taking them divagation in the Family Court antiquity in removed incidents between 2005 and 2008. As a counselor with the municipality Department of Juvenile Justice earning $37,000-a-year, Simmons was appointed to alter someone offenders to court and countenance after them there.

One woman testified that Simmons prefabricated advances that ended with her performing oral sex on him in a locker area. Another said he fondled her in a kitchen after asking her to help him deliver a cooler of food.

"This is not what that kid would expect in that setting, but this is what she got," borough Assistant District Attorney Evan Krutoy said Tuesday.

The ordinal accuser said Simmons raped her in a courthouse elevator; jurors acquitted Simmons of those charges.

Watford represented all the accusers as troubled girls who prefabricated the allegations hoping to intend discover of safekeeping or intend a lawsuit payout.

Simmons didn't declare at his trial, but before his attractiveness care collapsed, he told authorities the girls had enticed him, according to land Supreme Court Justice prophetess Mullen. She initially authorised his care to plead blameable to ravishment and another charges in mercantilism for a prospect of 10 years' probation but after voided the agreement, locution Simmons had shown a "disturbing" demand of remorse.

In the interim, borough District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. had blasted the probation organisation as "outrageously lenient," and National Organization for Women members and others had demonstrated outside the courthouse.

Jurors heard null most the blameable attractiveness during the trial.

"Predators same Tony Simmons conceive these kids don't concern to society," Sonia Ossorio, the chief administrator of NOW's New royalty City chapter, said Tuesday. "But today's sentencing and this effort exhibit that they do matter."

Simmons was suspended and then appointed to desk duty after the allegations emerged in July 2008, authorities said. He hopeless in September as the Juvenile Justice Department was agitated to fire him, the authority said.

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