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Office of the District Attorney P. David Soares Sex Offender Hearing for Oscar Turpin
ALBANY, NY – Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares announced today that a hearing on the sex offender status of OSCAR TURPIN, 39, of 16 Oakbrook Manor Apartments , Ravena, NY would take place Tuesday April 5, 2005 at 4:00 PM before the Honorable Frank Milano in Bethlehem Town Court. TURPIN, the former manager of the McDonald’s restaurant at Glenmont Plaza in the Town of Bethlehem will complete his one year jail term at the end of May, 2005. The scheduled hearing will determine his status as a sex offender. TURPIN was convicted on May 4, 2004 on five charges including three counts of assault, forcible touching, and endangering the welfare of a child. He received one year sentence on each count which are being served concurrently. As the manager of the McDonald’s branch, Turpin had engaged in a broad range of inappropriate and illegal sexual harassment, physical and verbal abuse of many of his young female employees. Specific acts included use of inappropriate language, fondling, and, in one case, actually biting one girl’s buttocks. TURPIN got away with this behavior for a period of over several months because the girls were young, scared, and afraid that they would be fired. While none of these counts achieved the threshold of a felony, testimony at trial showed the psychological damage to the girls was significant resulting in depression and reduced performance at school for at least some of the victims. DA Soares expressed outrage at TURPIN’s behavior. “Any sexual offense is unacceptable. But in this day and age, when we are trying so hard to encourage young people to go out into the work place, to have a manager abuse his authority in this manner is particularly outrageous” he said. He also pointed out that this case underscores the need for parents to prepare their children to be alert to inappropriate (criminal) behavior by authority figures. “It’s a sad fact of life, but every year there will be a certain number of people in positions of authority over children and young adults who abuse their authority and damage the young people in their care. Parents need to prepare their children so that the children will promptly report any dangerous behavior” he said. Assistant District Attorney Renee Merges handled the case for the Office of the District Attorney. Back to Press Releases For further information contact: Richard Arthur
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