Nightmare Accusation: Facing Rape Charges
Imagine this nightmare. From out of the blue, your teenage niece alleges you raped her when she was nine. You’re innocent. But you were charged. The penalty, if convicted, is up to life in prison.
A jury trial is a month away.
There is no DNA evidence, no rape kit, no medical report, and no mandated reporter who made reports at the time of the alleged incident. You were alone with your niece only once in your life. And you never touched her.
Realizing that trials are uncertain, the District Attorney offers you a plea deal: Instead of risking life in prison, he offers you the same penalty you’d get if it was a misdemeanor: Eight months in jail. But you have to admit to sexually abusing your niece — a crime you did not commit.
There are two choices: Accept the plea deal, knowing it’s a lie, or go to trial where your fate rests with a jury.
The case boils down to her word against your word. She is either a creative liar or delusional. But she’ll cry on cue. And you will be stuck trying to prove a negative.
You’ve never been ever remotely associated with any sexual or violent crime in all your life and you know you’re innocent.
You can go to trial. The prosecution will try to dirty you up. If your defense tries to do the same to your accuser, if the judge does not stop it, the jury might think you’re bullying the girl – even though you’re on trial for your life. You, not her.
If you win at trial you get freedom. If you lose, you immediately go to a maximum-security prison, where inmates abhor child molesters. You won’t be safe in the regular part of the prison. You risk spending the rest of your life in solitary confinement.
You’re not perfect. You’re not an angel. You’ve been in the rough and tumble world of hard knuckle politics. But you never hurt a child. Never hurt anyone physically. Not once. Not in your whole life.
And you also know the system. You know the prosecutors are in it to win. It’s not about justice. It’s about winning and they know how to make even bad even lying witnesses look good.
You know innocent people get convicted just as often as guilty ones get away. The system is imperfect.
Now a guy gives you a deal with a misdemeanor sentence. But he has to save face. He has to make you admit to a lie. To humiliate yourself. What would you do?
Avoiding the Unknown
On November 6, G. Steven Pigeon, 63, pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in the first degree for a crime committed against a person less than 11 years old, as defined by Penal Law §130.65, a class D felony.
The plea was the result of an offer from Erie County District Attorney John Flynn.
The trial, set to begin in 28 days, was canceled.
Pigeon’s accuser, his 16-year-old niece, claimed Pigeon raped her seven years ago.
With the plea deal, the district attorney dismissed predatory sexual assault charges against a child, a Class A felony with a potential life sentence, first-degree rape, and first-degree criminal sexual act.
Flynn’s plea deal guaranteed Pigeon’s sentence was “just a year.”
With “time earned,” Pigeon will serve eight months.
When Flynn announced Pigeon’s arrest two years ago, in December 2021, he said, “I do not believe Mr. Pigeon should be out of jail. I believe he should be in jail the rest of his life.”
He explained why, “This is big boy stuff here, okay? This is rape. This isn’t child molestation okay. This is rape, and so when we’re talking at that level, all right, we’re talking life in prison.”
But Flynn explained he relied entirely on the accuser’s word.
“At the end of the day, at the end of the day, what’s going to happen, what all these cases come down to, is a child’s going to say something. I presume he’s going to say something. ‘It didn’t happen.’ Alright? At the end of the day, it’s a child’s word versus his word, it is. And I believe the child. I’m standing with the child, and I’m going to give the child justice.”
Two years passed, and this week Flynn explained why he offered Pigeon a plea deal for eight months.
“At the end of the day, he might have walked,” Flynn said.
Flynn said the accuser and her family wanted to avoid testifying at trial.
“The family just didn’t want to go through that,” Flynn remarked.
The Accuser’s Burden: The Challenge of Belief
Lamenting that people did not believe the girl’s story, Flynn added, “The victim is faced with the task that ‘people don’t believe me’. The shame of what happened to them is now compounded with that fact that people don’t believe them.”
At the plea hearing, State Supreme Court Justice William M. Boller asked Pigeon, “How do you plead to the charge of sexual abuse in the first degree, guilty or not guilty?”
Pigeon uttered one word, “guilty.”
“Pigeon’s admission to guilt for the victim and her family is justice,” Flynn said.
With that word, Flynn hopes the disbelief will end.
“Now, obviously, she was telling the truth,” Flynn said.
Post-Plea Consequences
Next month, in the icy grip of pre-Christmas sentencing, Justice Boller will sentence Pigeon to one year – meaning eight months.
When Justice Boller finishes, his court officers clamp handcuffs around Pigeon’s wrists, shackle his legs, and escort him out of the courtroom as TV news cameras roll.
They will transfer the prisoner to the custody of Erie County Sheriff John C. Garcia, whose deputies will arrange transport to the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden.
This place, a jail and not a prison, will be his home for the next eight months.
Attorney’s Perspective: A Unique Legal Situation
A seasoned criminal defense attorney expressed his astonishment at the proceedings, stating, “In my 25 years of practice, I have never encountered a case where the disparity between the potential sentence after losing at trial and the plea offer was so significant — going from a potential life sentence to just eight months.”
Counting the Days: Pigeon’s Journey to Freedom
By nightfall—on Friday, December 22, the first day after Winter Solstice, when the sun begins to travel a slightly longer path through the sky each day, Pigeon will be in his cell, with 244 nights ahead, each of which will be a little shorter and each he will count – checking them off as they pass.
A typical jail cell, such as ones at the Erie County Correctional Center, is where Pigeon will spend eight months and then be free.
When the sun arises next August 22, Pigeon will leave jail and step into freedom, his sentence served in full. No probation to tether him. That was part of the deal. He will be free to travel, relocate, and attempt to rebuild his life. He will reenter society, perhaps less conspicuously than in the past.
As part of the deal, he will have to register as a sex offender, though likely at the lowest level, requiring only minimal reporting.
The Final Question: What Would You Have Done?
It is a matter of record. John Flynn sought life in prison, then offered eight months. He did not know if the jury would believe the accuser’s story. Neither did Pigeon, and he was gambling with his life.
If Pigeon had gambled and lost, he would have gone to Attica or a similar maximum-security prison – never to return to daylight again.
Attica Correctional Institute
Because of the violent nature of many inmates at Attica or any maximum security prison, Pigeon, a 63-year-old white man convicted of raping a child, cannot live safely in the general population of prisoners. He would have to seek protective custody.
If you gambled at trial and lost, you would walk down the halls and into your solitary cell, where you will spend 23 out of 24 hours per day for the rest of your life.
You will get out for one hour several times per week for “exercise” in a room like this.
If you gambled on the jury – but, even though you’re innocent, they believed your accuser, this is where you will spend the rest of your life.
It is the nature of a coercive plea deal to take you beyond innocence or guilt and place you squarely into the sole calculation of survival.
So, if you were innocent, what would you do?
Before you answer with certainty, read our upcoming part 2: The Accuser’s Tale: Improbable Details Emerge.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
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[…] a relative of Pigeon has come forward after reading Coercive Plea Bargain? Pigeon Chooses Eight Months Over Gambling Life in Prison and made this […]
This is one of the scariest stories on injustice I ever read. This is what our system has become.
Flynn breathed a sigh of relief when Pigeon took the deal. That’s because if the girl were put on the stand she’d have been shown to be unstable and unreliable. And if her family had to testify they’d show the mother was behind it, and had coerced her daughter and possibly other family members to rally against Pigeon, to “keep the family together”. They knew Pigeon was ruined so they’d never get another dime from him. The family threw him away. Flynn made so many ethics violations, from making Pigeon change into the orange jumpsuit, to not saying Pigeon was presumed innocent, to using his platform as a DA to dismember his political enemy. Everyone interested in Justice needs to write the Buffalo News, the NYS Bar, and the Governor’s office to have Flynn’s prosecution investigated for malfeasance and incompetence. As another commenter suggested, the bargain offered proved Pigeon was no threat to anyone but Flynn.
“It is the nature of a coercive plea deal to take you beyond innocence or guilt and place you squarely into the sole calculation of survival.”
This should be posted in every courtroom throughout the country.
If Flynn did anything more than a year, he knows Steve would have rejected the plea because one year in federal prison as a child rapist is the same as a life sentence. He’d be dead within a week.
Flynn needed the plea. He did what government does. They cheat to get you where they need you. Flynn violated protocol, and violated rules of professional conduct to get Steve cornered.
No one is going to hold govt officials accountable. Judges violate rights all the time to get you where they need you.
Forced submission. That’s what it’s all about.
Is there anyone who would take the gamble? The time lapse is a challenge. How can one possibly recall the details or potential witnesses from a four hour time period from a decade ago?
I can’t recall what I did last week.
No probation. No danger. Flynn knows it. Just a shame they didn’t get this girl help.
Oh, like a rape kit?
Another “felon” with misdemeanor sentence.
I know when I’m taking a shit in the court house bathroom Flynn needs to stop tapping my shoe from the other stall!
Flynn said he was going to get justice for the child, what happened?
He got just enough to support her lie. That’s the best you can do when it’s a false accusation.
Flynn knows it. It’s a misdemeanor sentence and no probation. He made a deal no one in their sane mind would pass up given even a slight chance of a felony rape charge.
Time in prison for anyone should be enough. Why are we allowing prisons to be dangerous places?
Why is it known that people will be beaten and raped and our government is condoning such atrocities?
Where is the human decency? And hearing about 23/24 hours being spent in solitary? What kind of people are we?
It’s great they’re not giving him the ball and chain of endless probation.
Another “tell” that Steve is no risk to anyone.
The goal of courts and prisons:
Break the human spirit.
This is what America has become.
Great reporting. This really exposes the seamy side of criminal prosecution and the dilemas which defendants and their attorneys face in defending against politically motivated prosecutions.
Furhtermore, Flynn’s prior statements, as he argued the bail hearing on television, clearly violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.6 Trial Publicity. Don’t take my word for it; read the Rule yourself (https://www.nycourts.gov/legacypdfs/rules/jointappellate/NY-Rules-Prof-Conduct-1200.pdf) Mr. Flynn opined on Mr. Pigeon’s guilt or innocence and failed to state that the charges he brought were merely an accusation with innocence presumed.
Flynn should have been removed from this case and Governor Hochul should consider removing him from his public office.
Everyone should ask themselves whether this case would have been prosecuted at all if the defendant were Joe Palooka and not one of Flynn’s arch political enemies.
It never would have happened. Such an inside deal. Flynn should have been removed but he’s a mere puppet himself.
Rules of professional conduct mean nothing when there is zero oversight and no one enforced them. It’s a venue of collusion and coercion.
This is the only night Steve had alone with his niece- An outing he did not want to go on to begin with.
It makes no sense at all. A one night aberration in his 60+ years and no other complaint from anyone else at anytime ever? Makes no sense.
Thus the coercive plea.
Raped a child without a condom? Seems about the bravest thing about this whole story
Prison time should never come down to he said she said and no witnesses.
Without hard evidence it should be off the table.
chomo
Pigeon will probably be beaten and raped on a daily basis.
Sorry, Frank, I know he is your friend, but perceived CHOMO’s in prison do not have an easy life.
Wow. Just like the Ambrose kids were treated with courtesy of their cho mo father. And they’re innocent kids.
He should be okay if he’s on medical unit in jail. Everyone knows he’s not guilty.
Great article.
Thanks for pointing out his sentence is one of a misdemeanor.
Flynn did what he needed to make it a foolish move for Steve to go to trial.
Flynn knew Steve would not risk federal prison – that he would go to trial rather than risk any federal prison time. So Flynn held out the only option that was too good for Steve to refuse it.
Our court system is coercive. There is no choice. It’s bend over time.
They corner you and force compliance. No free will.
Our prisons are filled with innocent people who were targeted (like Steve and Frank), the scapegoat, or too poor to get any Justice.
Our system is barbaric. The courts are punishing and brutalizing us and we remain powerless.
Even with juries our prisons are violent warehouses where depravity is rampant. Taking freedom isn’t enough. Our prisons are designed to break the human spirit, punish families, and crush hope.
There’s no rehabilitation anywhere. They are for profit enterprises working hand in glove with our corrupt courts.
Happy Pigeon took the plea. Long gone are the days where truth actually matters.
Sad Days for Americans then
Prisons should never be for profit
It’s too risky. If they offered Steve five years or life in prison I doubt he would have taken it because if he goes to federal prison as a child predator, he won’t last a week.
They offered him what they knew was too safe to pass up. 8 months jail time and no probation.
It’s that or risk of death because any time as a chomo would mean death for Steve.
His life is too valuable to roll the dice
He had a JURY…
He did have a jury but given the dynamic it’s hard to prove you didn’t do something and a 16 year old teen is more sympathetic that a political powerhouse.