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NEW YORK, July 7 (UPI) -- A New York City stepfather received an 18-year sentence Monday for a sexual assault the victim exposed in an essay she wrote for a college application. Albert Tarrats, 62, said nothing during the hearing in criminal court in Brooklyn. His lawyer said Tarrats denies raping his stepdaughter in attacks she said occurred in 2003.
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Tarrats was arrested in 2012 after his ex-wife read her daughter's words: "Toward the end of their marriage he began to rape me."
The victim, who moved to Florida with her mother after the divorce, was not in court. Assistant District Attorney Anna Krutaya read a statement from the young woman, who is now 18.
"Getting closure and justice on this horrific situation is the best thing I could have gotten from this experience," she said. "I didn't realize how much of a burden it was on me til I went on the stand. Once I told my testimony and I was done, I felt like a weight had been lifted from shoulders."
The victim, who said her stepfather feels no remorse for what he did, urged state Supreme Court Justice Dineen Riviezzo to impose the maximum 25-year sentence, as did Krutaya. Riviezzo reduced the sentence because Tarrats' record was previously clean.
The victim said she was not trying to get her stepfather arrested when she wrote her essay for an application to a Christian college. She said she was trying to explain how she had become the person she is today.
