Ex-School Cop Sentenced In Sex Abuse Case
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - A former Pittsburgh Public Schools police officer has been sentenced to 32 to 64 years in prison.
Allegheny County Judge Donna Jo McDaniel called former Pittsburgh Public Schools' police officer Robert Lellock a sexually violent predator and a danger to the community.
The judge then sentenced Lellock to 32 to 64 years in prison for sexually abusing four teenage boys.
"He deserves every minute of it in the estimation of the harm he's caused these kids," said Assistant District Attorney Patrick Schulte.
In July, Lellock was convicted of molesting the teens from 1998 to 2000 while they attended Arthur J. Rooney Middle School. He allegedly pulled the boys out of class so he could molest them in a supply closet.
"It was hard for me to come out," said Shawn Logan, one of the victims who came forward to testify. "It took a couple years cause I was embarrassed, but you have to get through the embarrassment and you have to do the right thing and say something or the person's just going to keep doing it but to somebody else."
"He perpetrated a cycle of fear, shame and humiliation on these kids, and the fact that they were able to break that and come forward, I can't give them enough credit," said Schulte.
Lellock's attorney says his client was given a life sentence in a very difficult case.
"There was no physical evidence, it was all circumstantial evidence," said Tim Kidd, the defense attorney. "You're dealing with charges that were 15 years old, it's extremely difficult to go back and to recreate records to find people, to bring people to testify."
"He used that uniform in this case as a weapon, and the weapon didn't just stop when he was done committing these crimes, it was something that stayed with these kids until they were in their late-20s," added Schulte.
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