Lighter sentencing sought for sex assault

Chester County district attorney asks judge to reconsider West Goshen man’s prison term

WEST CHESTER »The Chester County District Attorney’s Office is asking a Common Pleas judge to reverse the decision he made earlier this month to reduce the length of prison time he had imposed on a West Goshen man convicted of forcing himself sexually on a sleeping woman he had just met.

On Feb. 8, Judge Anthony Sarcione signed an order cutting the minimum amount of time that George J. Torsilieri would have to serve behind bars from 22 months to 18 months, and made him eligible for a work release program after serving 14 months instead of the 18 months he would have to complete in the original sentence.

Sarcione had sentenced Torsilieri, 25, last year to one year less one day to two years less two days in prison, plus three years consecutive probation. At the time, he said the prison term, “should be a lesson to all young men who would drink and take liberties with young women. It’s getting out of hand.”

But in his new order, Sarcione said that he had decided to deviate from the state sentencing guidelines in reducing his original sentence because of “sincere expressions of remorse” expressed by Torsilieri, as well as a supportive family that he believed would aid in his rehabilitation. The judge also noted Torsilieri’s “strong history” of employment, the “huge number of letters”

submitted in his support “speaking to his good character,” and his youth.

He denied the defense request that the prison sentence be set aside entirely and that Torsilieri be allowed to remain free on probation.

“The court is of the opinion that the severity of the offenses (Torsilieri) committed requires confinement; imprisonment was necessary in this case due to the severe impact (his) conduct caused to the victim as well as the deviant conduct he exhibited,” the decision reds. “However, (Torsilieri’s) individual circumstances raise the expectation that he will be receptive to rehabilitation. We do not perceive or anticipate a need to warehouse (him.)”

It is rare for judges in the county to impose new sentences on criminal defendants unless there was some technical or legal error committed at the time of sentencing. More rare is for the prosecution to ask for a further reconsideration if the sentence is reduced on appeal.

Torsilieri was found guilty of felony aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault after a jury trial last year in which a woman with whom he shared mutual friends said that he assaulted her sexually while she slept in the West Chester apartment where they were staying overnight. The young biomedical engineer who had no prior record before his arrest in 2015 maintains that he believed the woman had consented to having sex with him, although she contended at trial that she told him “no” and said “stop.”

He is currently serving his sentence at Chester County Prison instead of a state penitentiary, where inmates with minimum prison terms of more than 11 ½ months are normally housed. At his sentencing in November, Sarcione said he fashioned the sentence to allow him to serve it in the county system because Torsilieri, “would not survive a state prison setting.”

In a motion filed Feb. 16, Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Morgan, who prosecuted the case against Torsilieri and who had asked Sarcione to send him to state prison for three to six years, objected to the new sentence because she said that Torsilieri had already received a break from the court in being allowed to serve his prison time in the county and did not deserve any further consideration.

Morgan wrote that Torsilieri had not presented any new evidence in his request for a new sentence, and suggested that Sarcione’s belief that his family would assist in his rehabilitation was mistaken.

“Despite continuing protestations by the defense, (Torsilieri) is a sex offender,” she wrote. He and his parents “have denied to every extent possible that (he) actually committed the crimes for which he was convicted.” They blame the victim for having “regret sex,” and said that society was to blame for “making young men into criminals,” she said.

“In short, (Torsilieri’s) family is unable to aid in the defendant’s rehabilitation, because the family is in denial about (his) being in need of rehabilitation,” Morgan wrote. She asked Sarcione to re-impose his original sentence of serving 22 months before parole.

According to police accounts and the woman’s testimony, she had come to West Chester the evening of Nov. 13, 2015, to meet friends who lived in a house in the 100 block of Sharpless Street. Some time that evening, Torsilieri and others arrived, and several of them went out to two bars in the borough, where she had a few drinks. She had not met Torsilieri, a co-worker of one of her friends at Depuy Synthes, until that night.

Four in the group, including the woman and Torsilieri, went back to the Sharpless Street house around 2:30 a.m., and she eventually fell asleep on a sofa in the apartment while the others talked.

She testified that she woke up around 5:45 a.m. to find Torsilieri on top of her, trying to kiss her and fondle her breasts. She shook her head from side to side as she attempted to understand what was happening, and told him “no” as he tried to have oral sex with her.

The woman said Torsilieri then pulled off her pants, which he had apparently unbuttoned while she was asleep, and he began to penetrate her with his fingers. At some point, she said, she asked if he was wearing a condom, thinking that would stop him from proceeding. But he found a condom, put it on, and continued to have sex with her.

When he finally stopped and she went to the bathroom, she found herself bleeding, she said.

The victim, whose name is being withheld by the Daily Local News because of the nature of the crime, told Sarcione in a lengthy statement at the November sentencing proceeding how the assault that Torsilieri committed on her without warning or consent had changed her life and left emotional wounds she was still trying to heal.

“I said no,” she said. “I said stop. But that was ineffective, and George continued to rape me. I was an easy target. The damage he has caused me will last a lifetime. But today is the day that I have the power and I have control, and I have the floor. I am not responsible for his punishment; he is.”

Torsilieri, who lost his job at DePuys Sythes in East Goshen following his conviction and until his sentencing worked for his family’s landscaping firm in New Jersey, read a lengthy statement in which he tried to let Sarcione know about his upbringing and background, but also tried to apologize to the victim even without admitting complete criminal responsibility for what happened. He continues to assert that he believed she had consented to the sex that took place between them the night of the incident.

“For two years I’ve agonized over that night,” Torsilieri said, reading from the podium before Sarcione. “I take full responsibility that (the woman) felt violated. I have a lot of respect for women, and I will have t live with this for the rest of my life. I wish things had gone differently.”

The hearing that Sarcione convened in December included prominent defense attorney Vincent DiFabio, who became Torsilieri’s fifth attorney since his arrest.

On Friday, DiFabio said he believed Sarcione had been fair in accepting his argument that Torsilieri’s background and character did not warrant a 22-month sentence, even if he thought that length was still excessive.

“I think the judge took a second look at it,” he said. “And he saw that making him eligible for parole sooner was appropriate.”

No date has been set for a possible hearing on the prosecution’s motion.