James Cleary - Repeat Sex Offender - Sick Twist

A twice-convicted sex offender from Yorktown has admitted to fondling another child, this time an 11-year-old White Plains boy who was friends with the offender's niece.

James Cleary, 46, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of first-degree sex abuse for inappropriately touching the boy on Aug. 16, the Westchester County District Attorney's office said today.


Prosecutors said the victim's mother had dropped him off at a Mobil gas station in Valhalla, where Cleary worked with his brother, Mark Cleary.

The boy was a friend of James Cleary's 12-year-old niece and the victim's mother knew the brothers for more than 10 years.

The boy, Cleary, his brother and other family members went out on James Cleary's boat that evening, then went to Cleary's home, where the boy fell asleep while watching a movie, the District Attorney's office said. During that night, the boy woke up as he was being sexually assaulted by James Cleary, prosecutors said.

Later that day, the boy and his mother reported the abuse to Yorktown police.

Cleary will be sentenced as a second child sexual assault felony offender on March 10th. He faces a maximum of five to fifteen years in state prison.

Cleary was listed as a Level 2 sex offender, on a scale from 1 to 3, with 3 being the most dangerous. He has served three brief stints behind bars following his encounters with children, according to records:

- In 1999, he was sentenced to four months in jail in Nassau County after being convicted of first-degree attempted sexual abuse, a felony, of a 12-year-old boy a year earlier. He got five years' probation and was designated a Level 2, or moderate risk, sex offender.

- In 2005, he was sentenced to 90 days in the Westchester County jail after pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a minor after police found him with a 15-year-old boy in his car behind the movie theaters at the Cortlandt Town Center.

- In 2007, he was sentenced to six months in the Westchester jail after pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and unlawfully dealing with a child in Yorktown.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"

.........Sarah Tofte