Man guilty of sexually abusing girl, 12
A Plattekill man has been found guilty of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl, the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
Christopher Gertz Jr., 41, was convicted Monday in Ulster County Court of the felony charge of sexual abuse, the prosecutor’s office said. The conviction was returned by a jury of seven women and five men.
The abuse happened on Sept. 14, 2017, and the girl, who knew Gertz, told her mother he had touched her inappropriately and might have taken pictures with his smartphone in the process, the District Attorney’s Office said.
The DA’s office said the girl’s mother called Gertz to her home and confronted him, but he denied the allegations.
After the woman reported the incident to police, Gertz fled to Indiana, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Investigators from the DA’s Child Advocacy Center, with assistance from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department in Indiana, found and arrested Gertz. During the arrest, authorities found Gertz’s phone in the water tank of a toilet at the residence where he was hiding, the DA’s office said.
Gertz was extradited to Ulster County on Nov. 14, 2017.
The District Attorney’s Office said the defense did not call any witnesses at Gertz’s trial but that his attorney, Bryan Rounds, said the allegations against his client “were a complete fabrication.”
Ulster County Senior Assistant District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji said in a prepared statement that DNA matching the defendant’s was found on a button and zipper of clothing the girl had been wearing, as well as on her undergarments.
Also, Nneji said, the girl had “no reason to subject herself to the legal process she [has] just been through” if her account wasn’t true.
This felony conviction is Gertz’s third. The other two were for burglary, and he served state prison sentences for each. He also has been convicted of five misdemeanors.
District Attorney Holley Carnright said in a prepared statement that he has “the deepest respect for this victim and her mother, who stood up to this defendant even though they knew they would be subjected to difficult and very unpleasant scrutiny in the process.”
Gertz is to be sentenced Dec. 19 in Ulster County Court.