No prison in NJ group-sex case: Victim faces ‘monsters’ and their supporters in court

🔴 Three men have been sentenced in a high-profile group sex case

🔴 Defense counsel said the men spent months in jail for "overblown allegations"

🔴 The victim in court called the men rapists over objections from the defense

FREEHOLD BOROUGH — Three men from New Jersey have been sentenced in a high-profile group sex case that includes no further time behind bars.

Andrew Gallucci, 26, of Marlboro, Richard Gathy, 25, of Manalapan, and Ronald Hondo, 26, of Monroe, were sentenced Friday in Superior Court. Each pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal restraint earlier this year.

The hearing on Friday included a heartbreaking statement from the victim, which was interrupted at one point by an outraged defense attorney and an incredulous relative of one of the defendants. Only one of the accused spoke.

Defendants met the victim at a bar

The men met a woman at a Manalapan bar and brought her back to Gallucci's home in Marlboro on April 2, 2022, authorities said. They engaged in sexual intercourse, although whether it was consensual or coerced remains in dispute.

After the encounter, the woman went to police. The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office charged the men that month with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, and criminal restraint.

Under those charges, they would have faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. But most of the charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Traumatized for life

Bob Bianchi, defense attorney for Gathy, said in court that the sex was "100 percent consensual."

Bianchi was "extremely satisfied" with the result in court given the possible alternative of years in prison, Bianchi said to New Jersey 101.5.

But the victim insisted in court that she was sexually assaulted. She said she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has contemplated suicide.

Superior Court Judge Jill O'Malley acknowledged that the night in question clearly traumatized the victim for life.

"You need to figure out what led you to behave in such a way that somebody else is thinking about killing themselves because of a situation you put them in," O'Malley told the defendants.

Details of the sentencing

O'Malley sentenced each man to five years of probation including a substance use evaluation, a victim empathy course, and a mental health evaluation.

She cited Gathy's and Hondo's 2019 summonses for public urination in her decision for the substance use evaluation.

They faced no further time behind bars on top of the nine months in Monmouth County jail that they had spent remanded in custody.

Why were the charges downgraded?

Bianchi, Gathy's defense attorney and a former Morris County prosecutor, said to New Jersey 101.5 that the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office repeatedly dropped possible sentencing times for plea agreements throughout negotiations.

Prosecutors initially offered a deal for 15 years in prison for each man but the number became smaller over time as more details from the night emerged, Bianchi said.

Bianchi criticized how prosecutors and investigators handled the case.

Statements from witnesses were not recorded by video but by a stenographer, Bianchi said.

The victim's mother and brother, who saw her the night of the incident, were not immediately questioned.

He also said police bodycam footage caught a detective coaching witness.

"It was a poorly investigated case. As a former prosecutor I'm a little offended," Bianchi said in an interview.

Defense says video contradicts statements

The defense attorney further said they had to "pull teeth" to get ring camera video that showed the victim drunkenly stumbling out of Gallucci's home, not running for her life as she had claimed.

In court, Bianchi said the defendants were subjected to "overblown allegations" that were then repeated in media reports.

He said the woman was a victim of criminal restraint but not of sexual assault or rape and that it was a night that "everybody is going to regret."

Prosecutor reacts to sentencing

After the sentencing, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond Santiago said this was a difficult case.

"First and foremost, we commend the victim in this case for the extraordinary strength and courage she exhibited while issuing a statement in court this morning, and we are pleased that the conclusion of this matter means she will now be able to turn her focus to the process of healing," Santiago said in a written statement.

"For every criminal case, the State’s burden of proof is not what we may believe, or even what individual pieces of evidence may show, but rather what firmly proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury — and in this specific case, due to a number of factors, that standard proved extremely difficult to reach, necessitating a compromise that we believe served the interests of justice."

Marlboro victim calls them rapists

As the victim started her three-page victim impact statement in court, she said Gathy, Gallucci, and Hondo were "three criminals who raped me repeatedly."

Bianchi immediately objected, saying that the defendants had pleaded guilty to criminal restraint, not sexual assault. He said the victim had agreed to the deal and could not call them rapists.

O'Malley allowed the victim to read her statement. The victim, shaking and crying, said the mental impacts of that night will stay with her for the rest of her life.

"Your disgusting, selfish actions have impacted me for the rest of my life. I thought that surviving the physical rape would be the hardest thing I had to do. And I thought that because I had survived the physical pain I would be OK. I was wrong," she said.

One of the defendant's relatives scoffed as the victim called them "monsters."

Gathy was the only defendant to speak in court.

"I just want to say sorry to the victim for how she feels about the case," Gathy said. "It was not rape."

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