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WILKES-BARRE — The mother of a teenage boy who was sexually assaulted by a 60-year-old Nanticoke man tearfully recalled the scars the ordeal left imprinted on her family.

“My entire family is devastated,” she said Friday in Luzerne County Court, a few feet away from her son’s attacker. “If it was up to me, he’d spend the rest of his life in jail.”

Judge Tina Polachek Gartley, noting the nature of the crime and the age disparity between the two, sentenced Richard Anthony Perugino, 61, of Hanover Street, to five to 10 years in state prison, followed by one year of probation. Perugino must register for life as a sexual offender.

He pleaded guilty Dec. 5 to a single felony count of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16. Two additional counts of sexual assault and a single count of unlawful contact with a minor, all felonies, were withdrawn, records show.

The Times Leader does not identify victims of sexual assault.

Police say Perugino on July 5 entered the basement of the victim’s Glen Lyon home and engaged in sexual contact with the boy, a ninth grader at the time. The victim’s 13-year-old sister walked in during the assault after hearing noises coming from the basement, her mother said in court.

“She won’t even go into his room anymore,” she said, fighting back tears. Her son, she added, is undergoing anger management classes because “he doesn’t know how to deal with what this man did.”

The boy later told investigators he invited Perugino over to his home after meeting him on a dating app, according to a criminal complaint. The two engaged in sex acts on the teen’s bed before being discovered. An older brother found Perugino hiding naked in an adjacent room, the complaint says.

Perugino acknowledged to investigators he “made a bad decision to go over there for sex” and said he wasn’t a bad guy, the compliant says.

Calling the incident a “vile crime,” Assistant District Attorney Tom Marsilio urged Gartley to impose a prison term at the highest end of the sentencing guidelines.

“Her son is living a life sentence as a result of the scars suffered in this case,” Marsilio said.

Perugino’s court-appointed defense attorney, John Donovan, said the case was “highly unusual” because Perugino had never been in trouble with the law prior to the assault. He asked the judge to take Perugino’s lack of a criminal record into consideration in imposing her sentence.

“It’s a real aberration,” Donovan said outside the courtroom.

Perugino, who offered a brief apology to the victim and his family, was ordered to have no contact with minor children or places where they gather and must undergo sexual offender therapy.

Perugino
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By Joe Dolinsky

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Reach Joe Dolinsky at 570-991-6110 or on Twitter @JoeDolinskyTL