Cops James Delinicolis, Angelo Dellosa sentenced for sex with schoolgirl
Two married police officers who used their authority to pick up schoolgirls for sex have been sentenced.
Police & Courts
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Two married police officers who used their authority to pick up schoolgirls for sex have narrowly avoided serving further prison time.
Senior constables James Delinicolis and Angelo Dellosa pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office after picking up a 17-year-old girl in her school uniform while on duty, before inviting her to a hotel on March 11, 2020, where they had sex.
“Leader” Delinicolis, 30, was sentenced in the NSW District Court on Friday to a two-year intensive corrections order (ICO), the most serious sentence to be served in the community, along with 400 hours of volunteer work.
And “follower” Dellosa, 31, received an 18-month ICO, with 300 hours of volunteering.
The Transport Command officers’, whose job was to patrol the safety of passengers using trains and buses, regularly picked up girls on the beat.
Acting Judge Peter Berman said the sentence and volunteer work would serve as a reminder of “just how wrong it was for them to treat the privileged position of a police officer as being an opportunity to pick up a schoolgirl so they could have sex with her.”
“While working as a police officer (Delinicolis) would give women his number two or three times a week, thus taking the opportunity which his occupation presented to pick up women,” Judge Berman said.
Originally, both offenders were charged with attempted aggravated sexual intercourse without consent, which were later dropped.
Judge Berman said the men served a “frightening” 22 days in prison when their bail was refused after they were arrested. They were a “target” for inmates and prison guards.
“Death threats were made, suggestions were made that they should kill themselves, and on one occasion it was inferred that Dellosa’s food would be urinated on before it was given to him,” Judge Berman told the court.
The pair have suffered for their actions, with Delinicolis’ wife filing for divorce and the officers likely to lose their jobs, the court heard.
The “distasteful” details of the pair‘s pick-up routine were read to the court by an unimpressed Judge Berman.
The court heard how ‘Violet’, a pseudonym for the young girl, was at a train station with a school friend, when Delinicolis spoke to her through a passenger window of the police car.
He asked her name, where she lived, whether she was single, and how old she was, before handing her a piece of paper with his number and fake name ‘Dimitri’ from a pile he carried with him to give to women.
She told him she was 18, which she was due to turn in four months.
The pair had consensual sex with the girl despite warnings from colleagues to “be careful”.
Delinicolis initiated the rendezvous and asked her for a threesome, which she responded: “I’m not going to have sex with two people. Maybe one at a time would be okay.”
Knowing his behaviour was wrong, Delinicolis told the girl to hide her school uniform when checking into a hotel and the pair told her after the sex to not “tell anyone because we are police and we might lose our jobs”.
She had to eventually block their numbers and delete WhatsApp after they continued to call and message her.
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