NEW YORK – A Westchester basketball coach, who had sex with seven minor females under the age of 11 and videotaped the sexual abuse was sentenced on Wednesday to 50 years in prison, federal authorities said.
Richard Dinizo, 58, took the videotapes to others outside of New York.
U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti sentenced Dinizo who plead guilty in May. Dinizo is an Italian citizen who’d been living legally in the U.S., according to published reports.
DiNizo, has been coaching girls basketball in Cortlandt Manor for nearly 20 years, officials said.
“This case underscores the urgent need for law enforcement to continue its efforts to protect children from those who prey on them,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said today. “Today’s 50-year sentence is a measure of how reprehensible is the conduct of those who will sexually exploit children. We will use every tool available to law enforcement to investigate, prosecute and punish those who sexually abuse children.”
According to the evidence, this is some of the prosecution’s case against Dinizo:
In March of 2013, a witness provided a camera memory card, discarded by DINIZO in or about August 2012, to law enforcement.
The memory card contained a series of videos made in 2009 and 2010 depicting DINIZO and a girl under the age of 11, identified as Victim 1,engaging in sexually explicit activity.
Dinizo used trickery and deceit in order to manipulate Victim 1 into engaging in the sexual activity captured on the videos.
Thereafter, during the course of the investigation, additional evidence was recovered from Dinizo revealing additional videos – made by Dinizo between 2007 and 2010 – and additional victims.
Ultimately, officials said law enforcement identified seven different victims, all under the age of 11at the time of the abuse. With all seven victims, Dinizo used trickery and deceit.
In many instances, DINIZO recorded the sexual abuse using multiple cameras simultaneously. The different cameras captured the abuse from different vantage points, according to authorities.