Amusedtdth
10-14-2009, 12:07 PM
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The mother of a 6-year-old rape victim verbally lashed out at her daughter's godfather Tuesday as he was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing the little girl over a two-year period.
"I'd rather endure a thousand needles flying through my heart than to acknowledge the truth of what you have done to our daughter," the New Castle woman told Kwok "David" Sze, who was in handcuffs in Westchester County Court.
Sze, a 50-year-old former assistant principal of a Chinese school and a Boy Scout leader who lived in Edison, N.J., pleaded guilty to first-degree course of sexual conduct, a felony, for sexually abusing the girl several times at her family's home between January 2007 and March of this year.
There was no trial because the girl's parents didn't want her to have to testify, so prosecutors arranged a plea deal that will send Sze to a maximum-security prison for eight years followed by 10 years of supervised probation and a requirement that he register as a sex offender.
Still, the victim's mother was given an opportunity Tuesday to share her daughter's feelings toward Sze, whose wife sat in the courtroom gallery with his mother, who flew in from Hong Kong.
The two families, both Chinese, had been close before New Castle police arrested Sze in April. The allegations surfaced after the girl started acting out in school and then made disclosures to her mother, prosecutors said.
In her remarks, the victim's mother told Sze that she recently took her daughter to the Teatown Lake Reservation and told her she could throw a rock at the lake for each sentence she wanted to say to him. The girl took a handful and threw a bunch for every statement.
"These are her words to you," the woman said, her voice filled with anger and pain. "You are a loser. I curse you. You are a grown-up, and you should know better by now. You are an old, stupid man. You hurt me the most of all. … I will kill you if you do that to another girl like me. … I hate you. You are a snake, and you will die from your miseries."
(2 of 2)
Sze, who has two sons, bowed his head shamefully as the woman read the girl's statements, then shared her own thoughts.
"(My daughter) was only 5 years old, yet you managed to take her innocence away with your perverted acts," said the woman, who is not being identified by The Journal News to protect her daughter. "You were given the grace again and again to stop what you were doing. She asks you many times to stop, and yet you choose to ignore her plea. You call yourself her godfather while all you did is curse her."
A guard unlocked Sze's handcuffs before he addressed the court and the girl's family.
"Nothing can express my regret and my own disgust in myself," he said, reading a statement. "I am a sinner."
Acknowledging the pain and suffering he caused, he said, "I don't know what came over me. … I deserve to be punished."
He said he had been a "law-abiding citizen for 49 years," volunteering for eight years for the Boy Scouts, working at a Chinese school and participating in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts for the American Red Cross, among other things.
At the end of his remarks, he turned around and looked directly at the girl's mother. Tearfully and without notes, he said: "I am really sorry. I don't know what I can say. I am really sorry."
His own mother, sitting on the opposite side of the room, could be heard wailing in the background.
Before handing out the sentence, Judge Jeffrey Cohen said Sze may have done "many good things for many people" in his life, "but all that goodness is forever outweighed by what you've done to that child."
"It was simply so heinous on so many different levels. There must be serious consequences," the judge said.
Barry Weinstein, Sze's lawyer, asked that the penalty be shortened by one day so that his client would be eligible for a medium-security prison, rather than maximum.
But Cohen, who said the girl's words will forever haunt him, refused to do that.
"The truth is," the judge told Sze, "I don't have any sympathy for you."
"I'd rather endure a thousand needles flying through my heart than to acknowledge the truth of what you have done to our daughter," the New Castle woman told Kwok "David" Sze, who was in handcuffs in Westchester County Court.
Sze, a 50-year-old former assistant principal of a Chinese school and a Boy Scout leader who lived in Edison, N.J., pleaded guilty to first-degree course of sexual conduct, a felony, for sexually abusing the girl several times at her family's home between January 2007 and March of this year.
There was no trial because the girl's parents didn't want her to have to testify, so prosecutors arranged a plea deal that will send Sze to a maximum-security prison for eight years followed by 10 years of supervised probation and a requirement that he register as a sex offender.
Still, the victim's mother was given an opportunity Tuesday to share her daughter's feelings toward Sze, whose wife sat in the courtroom gallery with his mother, who flew in from Hong Kong.
The two families, both Chinese, had been close before New Castle police arrested Sze in April. The allegations surfaced after the girl started acting out in school and then made disclosures to her mother, prosecutors said.
In her remarks, the victim's mother told Sze that she recently took her daughter to the Teatown Lake Reservation and told her she could throw a rock at the lake for each sentence she wanted to say to him. The girl took a handful and threw a bunch for every statement.
"These are her words to you," the woman said, her voice filled with anger and pain. "You are a loser. I curse you. You are a grown-up, and you should know better by now. You are an old, stupid man. You hurt me the most of all. … I will kill you if you do that to another girl like me. … I hate you. You are a snake, and you will die from your miseries."
(2 of 2)
Sze, who has two sons, bowed his head shamefully as the woman read the girl's statements, then shared her own thoughts.
"(My daughter) was only 5 years old, yet you managed to take her innocence away with your perverted acts," said the woman, who is not being identified by The Journal News to protect her daughter. "You were given the grace again and again to stop what you were doing. She asks you many times to stop, and yet you choose to ignore her plea. You call yourself her godfather while all you did is curse her."
A guard unlocked Sze's handcuffs before he addressed the court and the girl's family.
"Nothing can express my regret and my own disgust in myself," he said, reading a statement. "I am a sinner."
Acknowledging the pain and suffering he caused, he said, "I don't know what came over me. … I deserve to be punished."
He said he had been a "law-abiding citizen for 49 years," volunteering for eight years for the Boy Scouts, working at a Chinese school and participating in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts for the American Red Cross, among other things.
At the end of his remarks, he turned around and looked directly at the girl's mother. Tearfully and without notes, he said: "I am really sorry. I don't know what I can say. I am really sorry."
His own mother, sitting on the opposite side of the room, could be heard wailing in the background.
Before handing out the sentence, Judge Jeffrey Cohen said Sze may have done "many good things for many people" in his life, "but all that goodness is forever outweighed by what you've done to that child."
"It was simply so heinous on so many different levels. There must be serious consequences," the judge said.
Barry Weinstein, Sze's lawyer, asked that the penalty be shortened by one day so that his client would be eligible for a medium-security prison, rather than maximum.
But Cohen, who said the girl's words will forever haunt him, refused to do that.
"The truth is," the judge told Sze, "I don't have any sympathy for you."