A 43-year-old homeless man pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two women over the age of 70 in their Long Island homes.
Derrick Clancy copped to breaking into a Mastic Beach house in October by cutting a hole in a window screen. He then sexually assaulted an elderly woman, whom he told he had a knife.
“Following the abuse, the victim pressed her medical alert system button for help, and Clancy fled the home,” the office of Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a statement Tuesday.
One week later, the defendant snuck into a second Mastic Beach home where he attacked another senior citizen.
“When the victim looked in the closet, she saw Clancy coming into her home through a window in the closet,” prosecutors said. “Clancy then physically and sexually abused the victim.”
Both women were treated for their injuries at an area hospital.
Clancy pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree burglary and sexual abuse, second degree assault and “criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation.” He’s expected to receive a sentence of 22 years to life when he returns to court June 21.
Prosecutors charged Clancy in November. A judge ordered that he be remanded while his case was pending.
The son of one of Clancy’s victims asked CBS News how Clancy — a sex offender previously charged with rape — was still on the streets assaulting women like his 78-year-old mother.
“She is healing, but she is psychologically not well from this,” the unidentified son said in October. “I’m very angry and I want this guy locked up and locked up for a long, long time.”
Court records show Clancy was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman more than once in 1999. He reportedly threatened the victim with a “knife/cutting instrument” during that attack in Suffolk County.
The National Institutes of Health published a 2020 study calling sexual violence in older adults “an important public health issue with a major impact on victims and their peers, offspring and community” that has been under-researched.
