Appellate court upholds Newburgh man’s conviction in attempted rape sting

KINGSTON, N.Y. » A state appellate court on Friday, Jan. 15, unanimously affirmed the August 2019 conviction of a Newburgh man on felony attempted rape charges stemming from an FBI sting operation.

Authorities said Travis Sammeth, then 34, was arrested on Sept. 8, 2018, after pursuing a sexual liaison with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. The FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force uses adult websites to identify and arrest individuals seeking to have sexual contact with a minor.

Sammeth had communicated through a website and instant message with a state police investigator posing as a 38-year-old man offering contact with his fictitious stepdaughter, according to a press release from Ulster County District Attorney David Clegg. Police said that, shortly after arriving for his meeting at the Hudson Valley Mall in the town of Ulster, Sammeth

was arrested by another investigator posing as the stepfather.

Sammeth was convicted of attempted rape by an Ulster County jury on Aug. 23, 2019, and later sentenced by Ulster County Judge Donald A. Williams to 10 years probation, with the first 90 days to be served in the Ulster County Jail. Sammeth was granted bail pending his appeal.

On appeal, the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Third Department, rejected defense arguments that the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, that the investigator’s credibility was damaged by certain inaccuracies in the grand jury testimony, which conflicted with the trial testimony, and that the county court erred in denying the defendant’s motions to dismiss the indictment on that ground. The Appellate Division also rejected the contention that the court erroneously denied the defendant’s repeated motions for a mistrial on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.