SCRANTON — A Scranton man who was accused of sexually abusing a 3-year-old girl will spend three to 23 months in Lackawanna County Prison.
Nicholas John Puchalski, 41, was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Margaret Bisignani Moyle after pleading no contest to corruption of minors.
Scranton police arrested Puchalski in January after the girl told investigators at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania that he touched her genitals in September 2018.
The Times-Tribune does not identify victims of sexual assault.
Originally charged with indecent assault of a person younger than 13 and corruption of minors, Puchalski entered his plea to the misdemeanor corruption charge June 27.
Addressing the court Wednesday, the victim’s mother asked Moyle to impose the maximum penalty on Puchalski. The newspaper is not naming the mother to protect the identity of the girl.
The mother spoke of her daughter’s lost innocence, telling the judge the girl asks if the monsters ever go away. The victim is seeing a therapist and being treated for behavioral issues, she said.
“I tell her to keep fighting and always be brave,” the mother said.
Puchalski’s attorney, Kim Giombetti, told the court her client has undergone a remarkable change since the incident, addressing both his drug and alcohol problems and his mental health issues. He is working, with his employer so pleased with his performance that he plans to put him in a management position, she said.
“He’s a different man. He’s enjoying life,” said Giombetti, who asked Moyle to fashion a sentence that would allow Puchalski to continue on his current path.
In handing down the jail sentence, Moyle called it a case of competing interests but said she had to consider the seriousness of the offense. She told Puchalski she would consider an application for his entry into the work release program at the appropriate time.
She also ordered the defendant to have no unsupervised contact with minors after his release from jail.
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