Truck driver admits to sex charge
By Steven Cook
Gazette Reporter
August 24, 2000
FONDA _ A Fultonville ice cream truck driver accused of molesting one girl and
attempting to molest another pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree sexual abuse
in Montgomery County Court.
"Yes, I just want to get this over with," said John E. Snyder, 58, head bowed, as he answered one of a series of questions from Judge Felix J. Catena.
Snyder's last-minute plea came on the day his trial had been scheduled to start Wednesday.
In pleading guilty to a first-degree sexual abuse charge, Snyder admitted to luring an 8-year-old girl into his ice cream truck last summer after she said she had no money. Once Snyder got her into the truck, authorities said, he molested her.
Snyder was remanded to the county jail without bail to await sentencing on Oct. 23.
Snyder is to be sentenced to three years in state prison and three years post-release supervision. Snyder also must register as a sex offender and allow blood to be drawn for a DNA database.
Three other charges against Snyder, including attempted first-degree sexual abuse charge and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, were dropped.
District Attorney James "Jed" Conboy told Catena that Snyder's age, lack of a criminal history and the victims' families' consent, factored into offering the plea agreement.
"Last, but certainly not least," Conboy told Catena, "by pleading guilty he relieves two young girls, ages 8 and 9, from having to experience the trauma of testifying at a trial. That factor is not lost here."
Snyder, his face red, wiped tears from his eyes during Catena's questioning.
He broke down, crying with two relatives, before being led away by a county sheriff's deputy.
No members of the victims' families were present for the plea.„ The attempted first-degree sexual abuse charge had been forallegedly touching the leg of a girl, who was age 7 at the time. She was able to run away before anything more happened, police had said.
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