Published: May 15, 2008 08:33 pm            

COUNTY COURT: Former karate instructor sent to prison

Pichcuskie gets 5 year term for sexual abuse of a young boy

A former Pine Avenue karate instructor will spend the next five years in a state prison and the judge who sent him there says he only has himself to blame.

With the mother of his now 7-year-old victim looking on and nodding in agreement, Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza sentenced William Pichcuskie to five years behind bars and 10 years of probation. He will also be a registered sex offender and barred from unsupervised contact with children.

“I apologize to (the victim), my family and the community at large for violating the trust they placed in me,” Pichcuskie said just before learning his fate. “I have destroyed my life. I humbly beg the court to temper justice with mercy, not for me, but for my wife and elderly mother.”

Sperrazza was not swayed.

“What I do here today is a result of your actions,” the judge said sternly. “Don’t put on me the burden of protecting your mother and your wife.”

Pichcuskie, 50, 2262 Niagara Ave., had faced a maximum possible sentence of seven years in prison for his guilty plea to a single charge of first-degree sexual abuse. He was originally charged with predatory sexual assault against a child and first-degree criminal sexual act.

Investigators, who arrested Pichcuskie in October accused him of having oral sex with the boy at his home in August. The victim was 6-years-old at the time and had been a student at Pichcuskie’s Pine Avenue karate school.

The boy’s mother alerted police after her son confessed what had happened.

Reading from a handwritten statement, the one-time nurse and single parent told Sperrazza she had hoped the experience of going to the karate school would be good for her son.

“We went in, met the instructor, (Pichcuskie) persuaded us that this would be good for (my son),” she said. “It would teach him karate, along with self discipline and confidence.”

The victim’s mother said after attending classes twice a week for about two months, Pichcuskie told her he wanted to be a “a mentor for (her son), a father figure so to speak.” She said she met Pichcuskie’s mother and wife and was impressed that he was actively involved in his church and had even been a “Big Brother.”

Pichcuskie had told detectives that he had gone bike riding with the boy, taken him to the movies and spent time with the victim at his house “hanging out and drinking lemonade” during the summer months of 2007.

“I was pleased that my son had someone (a male figure) to spend time with him,” the victim’s mom said.

Then things changed the mother said. After several weeks of close contact, the boy no longer wanted to go to karate class or even to see Pichcuskie outside of the classes.

“After about two months of me asking him why he no longer wanted to have anything to do with this man, he finally broke down one night and shared with me the secret he had carried alone,” the mother said. “(It was) every mother’s nightmare, he had been sexually molested.”

Now, the mother says, her son will no longer attend outside activities and his grades at school have suffered. She says she “trusts no one” and “every day is a struggle.”

“This man was the only male role model (my son) had ever had in his life,” the mom said. “(Pichcuskie) took away his dreams, he took away his innocence.”

In a final plea to Sperrazza, she said, “Please don’t let (Pichcuskie) take away his trust in the justice system.”

Assistant District Attorney Robert Zucco said he was troubled by “the long-term contact” Pichcuskie has had with children.

“I hope there’s no other (victims) out there,” Zucco said. “I have no evidence there is.”

Pichcuskie’s defense attorney, Joseph LaTona, in arguing for a lighter jail term, insisted his client had not harmed any other children.

“He denies doing (anything sexual) with anyone else,” LaTona told Sperrazza. “There was a broad appeal to the community for other victims to come forward and the net response to that was zero.”

Outside the courtroom, the victim’s mother said she hoped the case would be a lesson for others.

“I never want to see this happen to another family,” she said.

The mother also said she believed her son, who did not come to court, would be satisfied with the sentence.

“My son has expressed to me, repeatedly, that he wants to see (Pichcuskie) get jail time,” she said. “This (sentence) is for my son.”

        

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