Willard D. O’Donnell has admitted unequivocally and consistently for well over a year that he molested a girl for years while living with her grandmother in Manchester — and that he has molested other girls in the past.

At O’Donnell’s sentencing on Friday in Hartford Superior Court, public defender John Cizik called such acceptance of responsibility the first and often the hardest step in sex-offender treatment.

Yet Judge David P. Gold sentenced O’Donnell, 59, to 25 years in prison, the maximum permitted under his plea bargain — and very likely an effective life sentence.

The judge explained that if he gave the former tow-truck driver a shorter sentence and another child had to go through molestation as a result, “I couldn’t forgive myself.”

Prosecutor Donna Mambrino quoted O’Donnell as saying that if he hadn’t gotten caught, he probably would have continued to sexually abuse his most recent victim or someone else.

At one point during his sentencing remarks, the judge said he “wouldn’t want to bet another child’s life” on the possibility that O’Donnell can change his ways.

“Nor would I, your honor,” interjected O’Donnell, a short man who has grown a long gray-white beard in the more than 13 months he has been behind bars, unable to post $500,000 bond, since his arrest.

Gold made clear he was convinced that O’Donnell’s conduct stemmed from the all-too-familiar cycle of children who have been sexually abused growing up to become abusers.

The probation officer who prepared a presentence report on O’Donnell’s background reached out to others to check O’Donnell’s hair-raising accounts of incestuous abuse in his family when he was a child. Those accounts were corroborated “not by one or two people, but by everyone with whom the probation officer spoke,” the judge said.

But Mambrino said O’Donnell “never did anything to get help for himself until he knew he would be arrested for this crime.”

Perhaps the most serious single act of abuse O’Donnell committed against his most recent victim — Stephanie Vermette, who now lives in Vernon — was to put a rag soaked in carburetor fluid over her face in an effort to knock her out so that he could rape her.

Mambrino called that a “heinous act,” which caused the girl to lose consciousness and left her at risk for long-term neurological damage. O’Donnell told police he got scared, took the rag away after a couple of seconds, and didn’t commit the rape.

The Journal Inquirer ordinarily doesn’t identify sexual-assault victims. But Vermette, 17, agreed to be identified after requesting an interview with the newspaper a number of months ago. The JI on Nov. 12 published a story based on the interview.

Vermette was present in court Friday but didn’t speak. She did, however, write a statement that was read aloud by her grandmother, Linda Benson, who is also her adoptive mother.

“I spent nights crying myself to sleep, wishing it was a dream,” Vermette said in the statement, adding that she “spent hours thinking of ways to die.”

Vermette said she would like to stop all abuse of children but acknowledged that she can’t do that.

She added, however, “I have the chance to stop one person, and I am taking it.”

Gold quoted that comment in his sentencing remarks, adding, “That’s what I have to do.”

SOURCE: http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2009/11/22/crime_and_courts/doc4b075d5d8bc65046912456.txt