Troy man’s appeal of 2013 sex abuse conviction rejected

ALBANY, N.Y. » A state appellate court has upheld the 2013 conviction of a Troy man on child sex abuse charges.

The Rensselaer County District Attorney’s Office said Friday that the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court rejected a bid by Robert Wolf to have his conviction of two felony counts of first-degree course of sexual conduct and a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child vacated. Wolf had said that both the course of sexual conduct charges were not specific enough and that he had ineffective counsel.

Wolf, then 18, and his father, Scott, then 40, were arrested in May 2010, each accused of sexually assaulting a girl younger than 11 years old between September 2008 and August 2009. Robert Wolf’s first trial ended in a mistrial, according to court papers, after Wolf’s defense counsel failed to serve a timely notice of alibi on the prosecution.

Wolf was convicted in August 2013 after a second trial, however, and sentenced to concurrent 17 ½-year prison sentences on each felony count, as well as one year on the endangering charge.

Wolf argued in his appeal that prosecutors were not specific enough in detailing when individual incidents of abuse occurred, but the appellate court found that in a case involving continuing offenses, identifying time periods over which the abuse occurred is legally sufficient.

The court also did not agree with Wolf’s claim that his defense counsel was ineffective, citing “defense counsel’s failure to serve a timely notice of alibi, failure to qualify [a] witness as an expert, troubling statements during the course of the trial, unsuccessful attempts to impeach the victim through other witnesses and attempts to introduce an order of protection issued against defendant in favor of the victim and to introduce the victim’s medical records.”

The appellate court found, however, that “although our review of the totality of the record may reveal that errors were made, it is not apparent that any errors were prejudicial, and we find that defendant received meaningful representation …”

Wolf is currently being held in the maximum-security Elmira Correctional Facility, according to state prison records, and will be be first eligible for parole in February 2027.