Laughing rape susp surrenders Cops: Vid showed him giggling after attack
Upstate att’y in $12M scam
He’s not laughing now.
A jubilant rape suspect was caught laughing in surveillance video cops say was taken just after he followed his victim into a Brooklyn park and forced himself on her — then surrendered to police hours after cops released the shocking footage to the media.
Police released the video early Wednesday and asked the public’s help identifying the suspect. By Wednesday afternoon, 31-year-old Kenton Deagle had turned himself in.
Cops say he attacked the 26-year-old victim near Pennsylvania Ave. and Linden Blvd. in East New York about 3 a.m. Saturday. The woman told police she was walking home when a man approached and began chatting her up.
She tried her best to ignore him and when he kept talking to her she walked into nearby Linden Park to get away from him, cops said.
The sicko followed her into the park and raped her there, officials said.
The woman called 911 after the man left the park. Medics took her to an area hospital where she was listed in stable condition.
At around the same time, the suspect was caught on a surveillance camera inside a bodega near the park smiling broadly, laughing and clasping hands with somebody.
He was wearing a white Tshirt with the word “Drippin” on it. Deagle awaits arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court on rape charges. A former upstate lawyer pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday for his role in an inheritance scheme that stole $12 million from the family trusts of three people.
Prosecutors said Thomas Lagan partnered with a former Albany-area judge, Richard Sherwood, to bilk the trusts of Albany-area philanthropists.
Lagan, 61, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and filing a false tax return. He previously pleaded guilty to grand larceny in state court in Albany.
Prosecutors said Lagan even continued to use the money he stole to buy property in Otsego County after his arrest.
Grant Jaquith, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, called Lagan’s fraud “staggering.”
“Lagan and Richard Sherwood lined their own pockets and then lied about it on their tax returns,” Jaquith said in a statement. “Now they will be held accountable for their contemptible crimes.”
Jaquith said Lagan and Sherwood partnered in an $11.8 million scam, which diverted inheritances meant for charities, churches and families to themselves.
The pair provided estate planning services to philanthropists Warren and Pauline Bruggeman, and to Pauline’s sister Anne Urban.
But instead of following through on their wishes, Lagan and Sherwood diverted their money to accounts they controlled after Bruggeman and his wife died, officials said.