WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A registered sex offender decided to plead guilty to charges he molested a 7-year-old boy on New Year’s Eve in 2013 before a trial started in his case, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
John Frederic Sabbaghrabaiotti, 48, entered guilty pleas Wednesday in Forsyth Superior Court to two counts of attempted first-degree sex offense and one count of taking indecent liberties with a child. He had originally been charged with two counts of first-degree sex offense and one count of taking indecent liberties.
Judge David Hall of Forsyth Superior Court sentenced Sabbaghrabaiotti to 20 to 29 years in prison and ordered that he register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Sabbaghrabaiotti also has to submit to lifetime satellite-based monitoring.
This was the second time Sabbaghrabaiotti faced a trial on the same allegations. In January 2015, a Forsyth County jury convicted him on the same charges. Judge Edwin Wilson of Forsyth Superior Court gave him three consecutive sentences that totalled 83 years and three months to 102 years and nine months in prison.
Sabbaghrabaiotti appealed his conviction to the N.C. Court of Appeals. The appeals court overturned the conviction, ruling that Fulton McSwain of Vantage Point Children’s Advocacy Center gave improper expert testimony that the boy, now 10, was sexually abused. The court said that McSwain is not allowed to testify about the credibility of another witness when no physical evidence of sexual abuse has been introduced.
Read full story: The Winston-Salem Journal