ALBANY — After turning to mouth, "I love you," to his wife, sitting in the second row of the Albany County Courthouse, Jeremiah Conklin fell to his chair when Judge Daniel Lamont sentenced him to one to three years in a state prison for third-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.

Conklin, 26, was convicted on Feb. 1 and sentenced on April 12. He has maintained his innocence since his arrest and he is planning to appeal, his family said. They would make no further comment about Conklin; phone calls to his lawyer, Sheryl Coleman, were not returned.

In July of 2002, the victim, who is from Berne, went to Conklin’s house in Voorheesville to baby-sit, according to David Rossi, the prosecutor handling the case for the Albany County District Attorney’s office. The Enterprise does not print the names of sex crime victims.

Although Conklin was a friend of the victim’s family, the two had no prior sexual relationship, Rossi said. The next day, the girl reported the incident to her mother who took her to the police and then to the hospital, he said.

During arguments before the sentencing, Coleman questioned the credibility of the victim, pointing out that she had multiple sexual partners and that there had been mixed DNA when she was swabbed, indicating semen from more than one man. Conklin’s DNA was found on the girl; he said that he didn’t know how it got there. During the trial, Rossi said, the defense implied that the victim had access to Conklin’s used condoms.

Before he was sentenced last week, Conklin’s lawyer, Coleman, filed a motion to set aside the jury’s verdict, citing New York State Criminal Procedure Law, which can modify or set aside a guilty verdict in light of new evidence, improper conduct by a juror, or proof of ground in the trial record that would require the Appellate Court, the middle-level in a three-tiered system, to reverse or modify the conviction. Since Conklin was acquitted of a charge relating to oral sex, Coleman argued that the conviction for statutory rape was inconsistent.

Rossi opposed the motion and Lamont found in his favor. The evidence during the trial was legally sufficient to convict Conklin of the two counts he was found guilty of, Lamont said.

Coleman had also filed a motion contending that part of New York State Penal Law is unconstitutional, given modern-day knowledge about adolescents’ sexual activity. The law lists sexual intercourse between a person who is 21 or older and a partner younger than 17 as third-degree rape. Conklin was 23 at the time of the incident and the victim was 16, according to Rossi.

Again, Lamont denied the motion and said that the statute is constitutional.

Lamont also agreed to let the victim’s mother accompany her while she read an impact statement, to the protest of Coleman who argued that the victim is now mature, being the mother of a child herself.
"My life hasn’t been the same and never will be," read the victim from her statement, which was handwritten on a sheet of loose-leaf paper. She spoke in a small voice, rushing to the end of each sentence, as she sat slumped on the witness stand.
"Some people didn’t believe me until there was evidence to prove it," she said. She asked that the court send Conklin away, ending her statement by saying, "Think about all the other baby sitters he’s done this to."
He knows of no evidence of other rapes by Conklin, Rossi said in a phone interview after the sentencing. Following the victim’s impact statement, Lamont said that he would not take allegations of other crimes into consideration. Coleman objected to the new allegations, but focused mostly on the girl’s other sexual relationships in an effort to discredit her. Coleman asked the court not to "infantilize" the girl. Of being parental and protective, she said, "The time to do that was long before this trial."
When Coleman finished, Conklin addressed the court himself. "I am a young father, a husband to my lovely wife," he said. "I ask you, I beg you, if you have to sentence me to something – community service, probation, minor jail time," he said. Conklin, who looks younger than his 26 years, with sandy blonde hair and glasses, still maintains his innocence.
"We never had sexual relations at all," he said. "Have mercy on me."

Conklin faced a maximum of one-and-a-third to four years in prison, according to Rossi. Lamont gave him one-to-three in a state penitentiary, after which he will have to register as a sex offender. Rossi said that Conklin will most likely be registered as a Level 2 offender on the state’s three-tiered scale, Level 3 being the most likely to re-offend. He is on the borderline between Level 1 and Level 2, Rossi said; the deciding factor between which level he will be registered as depends on whether he takes responsibility for the crime or not.
"It is both unintelligent and unreasonable," for the probation officer to expect that Conklin would take responsibility for the crime since he maintains his innocence, Coleman said of the pre-sentencing report during arguments on April 12.
"It was his own doing," Rossi said last week. "And he isn’t taking responsibility."