Most people view the courts and judges as very strict and unmerciful robots. They are the hand of the law and although the law is cruel, it is the law. Our source though shares a case in which the law, in a decision that is originally thought to be unfair, was already quite merciful.
Gary di Leonardo was charged with 1st and 2nd degree robbery, criminal possession of a weapon in the 4th degree and brought before the Trial Court. What series of events brought him to this place?
In late 2002 and 2003, Phillip Riback, a pediatric neurologist, was charged with two indictments, later consolidated, with 39 criminal counts alleging that he had sexual contact with numerous male patients during medical examinations between 1997 and 2002. The witness said that after pretrial proceedings in which some counts were dismissed, Phillip Riback went to trial on 30 counts. He was ultimately convicted of 28 counts, 12 felonies and 16 misdemeanors.
A confident who followed the case, said that the convictions stem from the testimony of 14 boys, none of whom knew one another (except two were brothers), whose families consulted defendants for their sons’ various neurological problems. The boys described a variety of conduct that occurred for the most part after their parents complied with Riback’s request that they leave the boys alone with him in the examining room, at which time defendant encouraged them to play a “controlled spitting” game with him, tickled, hugged or kissed them or play-wrestled with them, pushed his erect penis against their bodies, held them upside down by their ankles or had the boys sit or lay on him, during which time Riback’s hands or face came into contact with the boys’ genitals, mostly over clothing (several described defendant’s direct –underneath clothing- contact with their penis), or the boys’ faces were pushed to Riback’s genital area over clothing. The lawyer said that all of the contact occurred in the subterfuge of a medical exam by Riback, often accompanied by warnings not to tell anyone.
A jury convicted David L. Perkins of numerous crimes arising out of his conduct in providing alcohol to and engaging in sex acts with his daughter’s teenage friends. County Court had imposed the maximum sentence, an entire sum of 36 years in prison.
According to a reporter, Perkins asserted that there was legally insufficient evidence to convict him of sexual abuse because the court had failed to establish that the victim was physically helpless but the court asserted that the victim’s testimony that she blacked out and “was so drunk that she didn’t know what was going on,” was sufficient to establish the presence of physical helplessness.
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