Man who raped boy gets 10 years

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — A 29-year-old Meadowbrook Avenue man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a single count of raping a 10-year-old boy in 2002.

Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the maximum sentence Friday on Nicholas C. Congemi, who must serve the full decade in prison.

In the plea deal, the prosecution agreed to drop two other rape counts and one count of gross sexual imposition.

The single rape count to which Congemi pleaded guilty was reduced from one carrying a potential life prison term to a charge carrying three to 10 years in prison.

Dawn Cantalamessa, assistant county prosecutor, recommended the full 10 years in prison for Congemi.

“It’s a shameful thing that transpired,” Judge Evans said. “You’ve not only hurt the victim’s family, but you’ve hurt your own family and, I’m sure, brought disgrace upon your own family to an extent that no one could ever measure.”

A May 2007 trial on the four original counts produced a hung jury and a mistrial after three full days of deliberations failed to produce a verdict on any of the charges.

After prison, Congemi will be on parole for five years, and he’ll have to register as a sex offender quarterly with the sheriff for life.

Congemi, who apologized in court for his crime, won’t be allowed to live within 1,000 feet of any school, preschool or child day-care center.

Congemi’s guilty plea came after he confessed his crime to a polygraph examiner in the pre-exam interview, Cantalamessa said.

The 10-year sentence “was something more than I believe the situation warranted, but it’s reasonable and fair,’’ said Congemi’s lawyer, John Shultz.