West chester >> Cooperation with investigators and prosecutors earned a man accused of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after a night of drinking a lesser prison sentence than he might otherwise have received for the crime.
But it did not allow him to escape a withering assessment and lecture by the judge who accepted his guilty plea in Common Pleas Court Monday.
“What you did was an act of cowardice and an act that should never be repeated,” Judge Patrick Carmody told defendant Christopher Ciammetti before sentencing him to 18 to 44 months in state prison followed by five years’ probation. “If I ever see you again (in court) I’ll sentence you to jail for the rest of your life.”
Ciammetti admitted that he had sexually assaulted a woman who he had driven to a friend’s house when she became sick after drinking too much at a mutual acquaintance’s going-away party. She went to sleep on a couch, and he had sex with her while she slept.
Although the charge to which Ciammetti, 34, a former East Goshen man who was arrested while living in Spring Hill, Tenn., south of Nashville, was aggravated indecent assault, a second-degree felony, Carmody said he viewed what had occurred as more serious.
“This is arguably a rape case,” the judge told Ciammetti. “I think you are getting a break.” But he said he would accept the plea agreement worked out between First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone and Ciammetti’s attoney, Evan Kelly of West Chester, because the victim and police had agreed to it.
Noone told Carmody that his office had agreed to let Ciammetti plead to the lesser charge and serve only a minimum of 18 months in state prison largely because he had not contested the charges after his arrest. He also said that the victim, a 34-year-old woman who sat in the rear of the courtroom during the proceedings but who did not address the court, wanted to put the matter behind her and seek closure.
State sentencing guidelines for someone in Ciammetti’s case with no criminal history would normally have called for a minimum of 22 months behind bars.
“I have worked with the victim since the time that this happened,” Noone told Carmody. “She has lived with this for a very long time. It was an incredibly traumatic event that changed her life forever. This (plea proposal) is a recognition of the defendant’s willingness to cooperate, and the willingness of the victim to put this behind her.
A second man, Bryan Confer, who owned the home where the assault took place, has already pleaded guilty to aggravated indecent assault charges and is awaiting sentencing by Carmody in January.
Ciammetti, a 2000 graduate of West Chester East High School, told the judge that what had occurred happened when he was drunk. He apologized to the victim, mumbling that he hoped the woman “could go on” and close the painful chapter in her life. Carmody, however, reminded him that being under the influence of alcohol was not a defense against sexual assault.
He said Ciammeti and Confer amounted to two “bullies who did this despicable crime.” If someone had assaulted a sister or daughter of theirs, “you would want to go strangle their neck.”
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case by Detective Jon Stafford of the Westtown-East Goshen Police Department, the woman arrived at the Phoenixville Hospital emergency room sometime in the morning of Sept. 15, 2013. There, she spoke to Stafford and told him that she had been at a going away party at a Glen Mills bar the evening before, but had become intoxicated and got sick.
She said she was driven to Confer’s home in the Summit House condominiums in East Goshen by Ciammetti, and that she remembered passing out on a couch there. When she woke up, she found Confer trying to remove her pants and molesting her. She said she was in and our of consciousness, and did not consent to having sex with anyone that night.
When DNA was tested from samples taken during an examination of the woman, however, it determined that the DNA did not match Confer. When Stafford eventually met with Confer to discuss the case in June 2014, he told the detective that when he had arrived home in the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 2013, he saw Ciammetti getting up from the couch when the victim was asleep. Confer said Ciammetti was pulling up his pants and told him to “go ahead,” according to the complaint.
Confer also said he had spoken to Ciammetti since the incident and the DNA testing, and told him that there was another DNA match. Ciammetti allegedly told him that the DNA would be his.
Stafford was eventually able to get a court order in Tennessee to get a swab of Ciammetti’s saliva, which was submitted for DNA testing. It did match that taken from the woman after the incident.
Ciammetti was arrested in September 2014. He has been free on bail since.
When Carmody asked whether he was friends with Confer, Ciammetti said, “At that moment, yes. At this time, no.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
