Judge orders Lockport child molester to confess to victim's mom

Sep. 1—State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. ordered a Town of Lockport man, who had pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a small girl, to make it clear to the victim's mother that he had done so.

Wednesday, Kloch was upset after reading a Niagara County probation officer's pre-sentencing report in which Terry Somes, 59, downplayed his acts and "blamed the victim for accusing him."

Kloch ordered Somes to turn to the girl's mother in the audience and say, "I sexually abused your daughter." Somes did so, in those words.

Somes faces up to four years in prison for attempted second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, but Kloch followed the probation officer's recommendation and placed Somes on interim probation for a year, pending a final sentencing decision.

The girl was "basically abandoned" by her mother at the Child Advocacy Center in Niagara Falls and is now in foster care, Assistant District Attorney Lisa M. Baehre said.

"It's a sickening case," Kloch said.

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