SCRANTON — A Lackawanna County judge told Eric Leidel she initially planned to sentence him to state prison for statutory sexual assault.
Instead, he’ll do his time at Lackawanna County Prison with a chance to prove Judge Margaret Bisignani Moyle made the right choice.
Moyle sentenced the 25-year-old Scranton man on Wednesday to 11 to 23½ months in jail followed by four years of probation for sexually assaulting a pre-teen girl several years ago.
Scranton police accused Leidel in June of having a sexual relationship with the victim in 2011 or 2012, when she was 11 years old. The abuse, which included oral sex and intercourse, happened at a home in North Scranton.
The Times-Tribune does not identify victims of sexual assault.
Describing it as a difficult case, Leidel’s attorney, Curt Parkins, argued for leniency for the defendant.
He asked Moyle to consider Leidel’s age at the time of the crime.
“When the offense started, he, too, was a minor,” Parkins said.
Although probation officials recommended a state prison sentence, Parkins said he believed Leidel was someone who could be rehabilitated at the county level.
Moyle, who received and reviewed a letter from the victim at the outset of the hearing, told the defendant it made some very compelling points.
However, she said, Leidel’s attorney also made compelling points. There is no indication the defendant has reoffended in the years since the original assault, she said.
Moyle told Leidel that because the crime was a serious, violent offense committed against a child, incarceration was necessary.
In sending him to the county jail instead of state prison, Moyle warned Leidel she was still giving him “enough rope to hang yourself” by imposing the four-year probationary period along with a series of other conditions the defendant must meet when he is released.
Among them, Leidel must find full-time employment, avoid drugs and alcohol, have no contact with the victim and have no unsupervised contact with minors, the judge said.
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