An evil New Rochelle man will spend the next 21 years in prison after admitting to sexually abusing three children for years and secretly filming the sickening encounters, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Jason Ricketts, 23, was sentenced to prison Thursday after pleading guilty to sex crimes that began in 2019 when the victims were 12 and lasted until early 2023, the district attorney’s office said of Westchester County.
He will also receive 20 years of supervised release after his release from prison and will be registered as a sex offender.
The guy met his victims in different parts of the area where children congregate, then pretended to be younger than he was to befriend them, the prosecutor’s office said.
Ricketts gained their trust and even used illegal substances with them before beginning to engage in sexual acts with the victims and filming them, prosecutors said.
District Attorney Mimi Rocah said at a news conference that in some cases Ricketts recorded victims in secret.
When the victims wanted to stop the abuse, Ricketts cruelly threatened to post the footage and images on various social media accounts like Snapchat.
One victim told the court Thursday, through an assistant prosecutor, that she met Ricketts when he was just 8 years old before the abuse began years later.
“You stole years of my life…. Not only have your actions affected me, but you have also affected other people who once called you their friend; but you weren’t really a true friend, you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing…a predator,” the victim said, to which Ricketts nodded in court, according to the Journal News.
Another victim called Ricketts a “disgusting human being.”
“Every time I tried to make a new friend, you blackmailed me and tried to scare me…. I’m not afraid of you anymore. After today, I hope I never see you again,” the second victim said.
Ricketts apologized in court Thursday to the victims and his own family, the Journal News reported. Although he reportedly said he didn’t think the victims would forgive him, he believes God already has.
Ricketts pleaded guilty in January to two counts of first-degree sexual conduct against a child, second-degree criminal sexual act and inciting lewd sexual performance by a child.
He was arrested in January 2023 after New Rochelle police and other agencies seized several devices from the defendant’s home. Rickett’s phone had a photo vault — disguised as a calculator app — that contained videos and photos of him performing sex acts on three children, the prosecutor’s office said.
“After years of preying on children and inflicting unspeakable trauma on his victims, this defendant has been brought to justice and removed from our community,” Rocah said in a statement.
New York Post
