A 20-year-old man was not given prison time despite pleading guilty in 2019 to third-degree rape, attempted sexual abuse, and two misdemeanors in a new judge ruling who called imprisonment of the suspect "inappropriate."
Judge Matthew J. Murphy III of Niagara, New York, County Court, gave the suspect, Christopher Belter, eight years of probation instead of the up to eight years imprisonment he was facing. The decision was made this week as Belter was sentenced in the assault of the victim, only identified by the initials M.M. and in the sexual attacks on three other teenage girls.
Avoiding Prison Time
The county judge said that he was not "ashamed" to admit that he prayed over what was the appropriate sentence in Belter's case due to the sensitivity of the issue. Despite his ruling, Murphy said that there was great harm and that multiple crimes were committed in the case.
However, the judge later argued that a sentence that involved incarceration or partial incarceration of Belter was not appropriate. Murphy said the suspect was required to register as a sex offender and argued that the probation would act like a "sword hanging" over his head for the next eight years, the New York Times reported.
Belter was charged with first-degree rape, third-degree rape, and sexual abuse in late 2018, when he was still 17 years old, involving four girls aged between 15 and 16. The crimes allegedly took place inside his family's home in Lewiston, near Niagara Falls. The suspect was believed to have committed the acts between January 2017 and August 2018.
Previously, state police said that Belter's family called their Lewiston home a "party house" and accused them and family friends of providing guests, including minors, alcohol and marijuana. The then-teenage Belter pleaded guilty in 2019 and received a sentence of a two-year interim probation.
Judge Murphy previously said that one of the teenage girls who was a victim of the suspect gave a "gripping statement." In her recounting of experiences, the young girl described how she was forced to focus on a plant to distract herself while Belter was raping her, Yahoo News reported.
Pleading Guilty to Rape
The county judge said that during the rape, Belter allegedly told his victim to "stop being such a baby." Murphy also said of the statement that the victim focused her attention on the leaves of a nearby plant while crying amid the sexual assault.
A lawyer for one of the victims, Steven M. Cohen, denounced Judge Murphy's sentencing, telling reporters on Tuesday that justice was not done in the case. He revealed that his client, who was joined with some of the other victims in the courtroom, expressed their deep disappointment in Murphy's sentencing of Belter.
Following the sentencing, Cohen's client threw up in the ladies' room and argued that if Belter was not a White defendant from a rich and influential family, at least in his experience, he would surely have been given prison time. On the other hand, Belter's attorney, Barry N. Covert, refused to comment regarding the sentencing. During the sentencing hearing, the defense attorney said that the suspect regretted his actions when he was a teenager, the Washington Post reported.
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