Crime & Safety

'Predatory' Girls Basketball Coach Gets 25-to-Life in Prison

The girls he tricked into oral sex were 7 and 10 years old.

Richard Dinizo, a former girls basketball coach, was sentenced today to 25 
years to life in state prison, Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore announced.

Dinizo, 58, pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to three counts of predatory sexual assault of a child, class A violent felonies.

The charges are related to three separate criminal sexual acts—which took place at Dinizo's Cortlandt Manor home between March 1, 2008 and July 31, 2010—with three separate victims. Two of them were 7 at the time and the third was 10.

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The defendant reportedly videotaped the acts.

"With each of the victims, the defendant tricked the young girls into playing a tasting game that involved the girls performing acts of oral sex," officials from the Westchester County District Attorney's office said in a December statement. "Each victim wore a mask covering their eyes that kept them unaware of the defendant's deviant sexual conduct."

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Originally charged in April 2013, he was charged with five additional counts of sexual exploitation of a child and child pornography in White Plains federal court in May 2013.

The offenses were committed between March 1, 2008 and July 31, 2010 in his Cortlandt Manor home, prosecutors said.

The case was investigated by the New York State Police, the Westchester County District Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

The defendant also faces federal charges. 

Second Deputy District Attorney Audrey Stone, Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division, and Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Borden of the Special Prosecutions Division prosecuted the case.


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