Modica, 44, a mother of four children, a former prosecutor and Sloatsburg PTA member, is scheduled for sentencing Wednesday on her guilty pleas to felony charges of third-degree rape and third-degree criminal sexual act. She urged Rockland County Judge Catherine Bartlett to send her mother to state prison. Modica also admitted she knew that both Suffern High School boys - who were friends with her eldest son - were underage at the time. AdvertisementShe faces a maximum of two years in prison when sentenced by acting state Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bartlett in New City.
Months after admitting in court before family members that she had sex with two teenage boys, Beth Modica might make her final appearance this week for some time. That\’s what we are recommending. \”She did say she would consider alternative sentences,\” Damiani said of Bartlett. \”We\’re looking for a state prison sentence.
The District Attorney\’s Office had recommended county jail time with long probation, but the law only allows 10 years\’ probation with a six-month sentence or less. Zugibe said he considered Modica a child predator and the teen males victims, even if they and some other people in society do not. Damiani said probation is the recommended sentence. She had been accused of providing oral sex to the 16-year-old on several other occasions.
Modica told her children to lie to their father the Spring Valley police chief about the marijuana and alcohol she gave to them and their friends, Danielle Modica said. Modica has been jailed since she pleaded guilty in April. \”Our position has not changed,\” Zugibe said. \”When pleading guilty in April, Modica admitted that she had intercourse with a 16-year-old boy in her bed and gave oral sex to a 15-year-old boy in the bathroom in July 2007 in her Sloatsburg home.
\”Bartlett has been advocating a two-year sentence for Modica since close to the beginning of the case in January, when Modica was arrested after an investigation by the Rockland District Attorney\’s Office and Ramapo police. Modica\’s lawyer, Gerard Damiani of New City, said he\’s holding out hope that the judge will sentence Modica to six months in the county jail and 10 years\’ probation - or even probation with time served. Beth Modica, 44, wept as her daughter Danielle told the judge she banged on the bathroom door at the family home in Sloatsburg one day last year as her mother and her boyfriend engaged in oral sex. The endangering counts involved the providing or sharing of alcohol and marijuana with the two boys and five other minors during July and August 2007.
He has long argued that similar first-time offenders of the non-violent sex acts have received probation or short jail sentence in New York. Modica also faces 10 years post-release supervision, registering as a sex offender with the state and paying about $1,300 in DNA testing and court fees. District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said his office is sticking to two years in state prison and prosecutor Dominic Crispino will express that to the judge at sentencing. \”I will be eternally remorseful,\” she said.
\”The probation report was excellent. A former prosecutor was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for having sex with boys, after her 16-year-old daughter told the judge she and her mother had competed for the same 15-year-old boy. He noted that Modica, a former prosecutor in Queens and Rockland, had already lost her law license and custody of the children. He husband and children were away at the time.
A Rockland grand jury indicted Modica in January on five felony sex counts, five misdemeanor counts of third-degree sexual abuse and 25 misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. \”I was betrayed by both of them,\” Danielle Modica said. She also will be disbarred. Damiani said he will make his case in a report that he will send to the judge.
Besides two years in state prison for Modica\’s guilty plea to statutory rape and criminal sex act, Bartlett imposed 10 years\’ probation, sex offender registration and 10-year orders of protection for the two boys she had sex with. She was moved to an upstate jail for her own protection because her estranged husband is Spring Valley Police Chief Paul Modica.
