THOMAS GREEN, MAN WHOSE SEX-ABUSE CONVICTIONS WERE OVERTURNED, DIES

PFMLIT COURT DECISIONS, DECEASED SEX OFFENDERS, DECEASED SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS, FAMILY FRIEND ACQUAINTANCE, FAMILY MEMBERS, General, JUDGE, LAURA AHEARN AND PARENTS FOR MEGANS LAW, LONG ISLAND NEWS, NEIGHBOR, PFML, SENTENCING, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF TRUST, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS WHO REOFFEND, SEX OFFENDERS WHO REOFFEND, SHAME ON YOU

Newsday.com/Patricia Kitchen
9/27/13
In November 2004, Thomas F. Green, 67, of Hawthorne Street in Selden, was accused by a LongIsland schoolgirl who said she was raped for five years by Green, her mom's boyfriend, only to seehim acquitted in a non-jury trial.  The girl ripped the judge saying she didn't get a fairtrial because he kept dozing off during her gut-wrenching testimony.  A child advocacy groupsaid it filed a complaint against Suffolk County Court Judge Gary Weber, with the state Commissionon Judicial Conduct, claiming that he slept while the 15 year old girl testified about how she wassexually abused from when she was 5 to 10 years old.  Parents for Megan's Law executivedirector Laura Ahearn said the acquittal wouldn't have happened if Weber had remained awake duringthe girl's testimony.  Green was acquitted on charges that he raped the girl from1993-1998.  The girl had informed her crack-addict mom about the abuse, but the mother died ofa drug overdose before she could go to the cops.  Later as a teen, she finally told her realdad about what had happened and he went to authorities.  But in a non-jury trial in November2004, Weber acquitted Green of all charges.  The girl said Weber had repeatedly put his headin his hands and snoozed as she relived the horrific memories of rape in testimony for twohours.  In a prepared statement, Weber denied the girl's claims.
 
The Suffolk grandfather faced new charges of abusing two other children.  Green wascharged with first degree sodomy, first degree sexual abuse of a child younger than 11 and othercharges.  He was arrested January 10, 2008 and indicted on April 16.  He was free on$50,000 cash bail and was arraigned on May 7 before Acting State Supreme Court Justice MichaelMullen.  Ahearn declined to comment on the new allegations, except to say, The issue that isof paramount importance at this time is to ensure that justice is served. 

The attorney for Green said the allegations are nothing more than retaliationby authorities frustrated because his client was acquitted once before on similar charges. Green pleaded not guilty on May 7 and was released after posting $50,000 bond.  The Suffolk DAsaid Green abused five neighborhood girls, including a 6 year old relative, at his home between1998 and 2003.  The children would come to his house to play in his pool and forsleepovers.  They called him grandpa.
 
Thomas Green was sentenced on July 16, 2009, to 35 years in prison.  He was convictedlast August of sexually abusing three girls in his neighborhood younger than 11 years old.  Ajury found him guilty of seven out of 10 counts of the indictment that detailed the sex crimesbetween 1998 and 2003.

On September 6, 2013, a federal judge agreed to release Green from jail afterGreen's convictions were overturned, but his dire medical condition will keep him in the hospitalfor a while.  Since bail was set at $100,000 bond it may take some time to satisfy bailconditions so Green may not immediately be moved from the locked ward of the Peconic Bay MedicalCenter in Riverhead to a regular bed.  After onocologist Marilyn McLaughlin confirmed aprevious diagnosis that Green has cancer throughout his body, the Suffolk district attorney'soffice dropped its opposition to his release.  Judge Arthur Spatt threw out the 2008 sexualabuse convictions, ruling that evidence corroborating the girls' stories could not have existed atthe time the crimes supposedly happened in the late 1990s.  

Green died of cancer on September 26 at Stony Brook University Hospital.
(New York)