Opinion ID: 2507
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Admission of Leight's Redacted Statement

Text: Jass and Leight were convicted on multiple conspiratorial and substantive counts of sexual abuse involving Leight's 12-year old daughter, Victim 1, and her similarly aged friend, Victim 2. Because Jass's Confrontation Clause challenge to the admission of Leight's redacted statement relates primarily to evidence involving Victim 2, we focus our background discussion on that evidence. [1]

Jass and Leight first met Victim 2 when the girl was visiting Leight's daughter at the family home in Rockland County, New York. After one such visit, when Leight was driving Victim 2 back to her own home, Leight engaged the child in a sexually explicit conversation and then offered her money to perform a sexual act on him. Toward this end, Leight had Victim 2 join him in the car's rear seat where he proceeded to instruct her in how to stroke his penis. When the child indicated that she wanted to stop, Leight warned her that if she ever told her mother what had happened, she would not be allowed to visit further with Leight's daughter.