Defendant to be Sentenced to Thirteen Years in Prison

Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler announced that on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, James Brown, 33, of Monticello, pled guilty before Orange County Court Judge Craig Stephen Brown to Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree, in connection with a sexual assault on a woman in her Middletown apartment in December 2017. The plea took place on the day that trial was scheduled to begin in the case.

At the time that he pled guilty, Brown admitted to being in the woman’s apartment and forcing her to engage in sexual contact by forcible compulsion. Under a plea agreement put on the record at the time that Brown pled guilty, he will be sentenced to thirteen years in prison when he is sentenced on July 16, 2018.

District Attorney Hoovler thanked the City of Middletown Police Department for their investigation of the case and the defendant’s arrest.

“I commend the bravery and tenacity of the survivor of this attack,” said District Attorney Hoovler. “Her cooperation with law enforcement is to be admired, and was indispensable to the successful prosecution of this case. No one should ever be subjected to this type of attack, particularly in their own home, where everyone has a right to feel safe. We have reached an agreement where the survivor will be spared the additional trauma of testifying, and the defendant will receive a thirteen-year state prison sentence. Our community will be safer during the more than one decade that the defendant will be in prison.”

District Attorney Hoovler highly commended Assistant District Attorney Michael Purcell who is prosecuting the case.

A criminal charge is merely an allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of the criminal law, and it is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the State of New York’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.