Friday, March 25, 2005
SEXUAL PREDATOR
Man gets 40 years for rapes
The man was convicted of raping boys age 11 to 17.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Judge Jack M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court spared no mercy when he sentenced a Warren man to 40 years in prison for raping boys.
At a sentencing hearing Thursday, Judge Durkin sentenced Daniel J. Pakulniewicz, 28, of Union Street to the prison term and tied it to a nine-year rape conviction Pakulniewicz received out of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
That means Pakulniewicz will serve a total of 49 years in prison before he would be released.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year to 37 counts of rape and eight counts of gross sexual imposition in the Mahoning case.
"I had to guarantee he wouldn't hurt anyone else," the judge said after sentencing.
Dawn Krueger, an assistant county prosecutor, said Pakulniewicz had sexual conduct with four boys, whose ages ranged from 11 to 17. Krueger said the victims' parents were friends of Pakulniewicz's, and he would often baby-sit them.
The victims were assaulted several times over a nearly three-year period, beginning in June 1999.
Plea bargain
In a plea agreement between Krueger and Pakulniewicz's lawyer Douglas Taylor, language from the original indictment was removed that would have carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment upon conviction for five of the rape charges.
In exchange for doing that, Pakulniewicz agreed to plead guilty to all the rape and gross sexual imposition charges. Rape carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The maximum sentence for gross sexual imposition is five years.
The prosecutor agreed to recommend a 30-year sentence on all the charges, consecutive to the Trumbull conviction.
The victims' mother told the court the 30-year recommendation wasn't strong enough, and she wanted the judge to sentence Pakulniewicz to the maximum sentence allowed by law.
The mother told Judge Durkin that Pakulniewicz had ruined her children's lives and the lives of other family members.
Pakulniewicz did apologize to the court for his actions, but Judge Durkin was unmoved, and he went against the prosecutor's recommendation.
Consecutive terms
He sentenced Pakulniewicz to four consecutive 10-year terms on four of the rapes.
Judge Durkin also ruled that the 40-year sentence would run consecutive to Pakulniewicz's nine-year Trumbull County conviction. Krueger said he was convicted in early 2003, and the rape involved at least one of the victims.
Pakulniewicz sometimes took the boys to his Warren home and had sex with them there, Krueger said.
Pakulniewicz also agreed to be labeled a sexual predator, which means when he gets out of prison when he is 77, he will have to register every 90 days for the rest of his life with the sheriff in the county in which he lives, Krueger said.