GUILDERLAND — After an 18-month investigation, police on Friday arrested a father and his girlfriend for having sex with the man’s young daughters in his Guilderland apartment.

Timothy Johnson, 32, of 104B Covent Garden — near the intersection of routes 155 and 20 — was arrested Friday for abusing his daughters, ages six and four, when he had visitation. They live most of the time in Connecticut with their mother. Johnson’s live-in girlfriend, Jessica Bruno, 29, was arrested, too, for sexual abuse.

Johnson’s four-year-old child told her mother that Johnson had abused her, Guilderland Police Officer Roger Ginder told The Enterprise.

The mother called police in Connecticut who contacted the Guilderland department; a lengthy investigation began here, said Ginder.

Police found that, while the children visited Johnson over several months, he had intercourse with them, Ginder said. Bruno also engaged in sexual acts with the children, Ginder said.
"The four-year-old came forward because it wasn’t right," Ginder said. "Dealing with children that age, we had to handle it delicately."

Later, the six-year-old daughter admitted to being abused, Ginder said, and a second investigation began.

On Friday, an Albany County grand jury handed up a sealed indictment. Bruno was then arrested at her apartment and Johnson later turned himself in, Ginder said.

Johnson was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual conduct against a child, felonies, for having intercourse with his daughters, police say. He was also charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, misdemeanors.

Bruno was charged with second-degree sexual conduct against a child, a felony, for engaging in two or more acts of sexual conduct with a child younger than 11, police say. She was also arrested for one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

They were remanded to Albany County’s jail without bail.

Johnson, an organic chemist, was arrested in another state, Ginder said, but not for any sex crimes. Bruno, who had a job in data entry, has never been arrested before, he said.

If convicted, Johnson faces up to 25 years in prison and Bruno could be imprisoned for seven years.
It’s rare to have a male and female involved together in sex crimes, Ginder said. "The whole situation is unusual for our town," he said.

In 2002 and 2003, The Enterprise wrote several stories about a teenage girl in New Scotland who said she was sodomized by her father; that case was never prosecuted.

Experts said then that statistics on incest are difficult to compile, not because the crime is uncommon, but because it is rarely reported. The Johnson arrest is the only reported case of incest in Guilderland in recent years.

In the past two years, however, Guilderland Police arrested four men for sexual abuse. In March of 2004, a man, 53, was arrested for abusing a 14-year-old that he met on the Internet.

In July of 2004, a maintenance man at the Guilderland YMCA was arrested for sexually abusing a teenage worker at the facility.
In August of this year, a 48-year-old was arrested for "inappropriately touching" a five-year-old boy in a bathroom at Crossgates Mall.

And, in September, a man, 28, was arrested for raping his 14-year-old neighbor in his Church Road trailer.
Of Friday’s arrests of Johnson and Bruno, Ginder said, "I’m relieved, but not as much as the mother and kids."

The children are being counseled, he said.