Port Chester man sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing two teenagers in Rye

Richard Olmino

The accused approached both female victims under the pretense of needing help before attacking and sexually abusing them

Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced today that a Port Chester man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenagers in two separate attacks in Rye.

DA Rocah said: “Westchester County is safer now that this defendant is no longer on our streets. No one has to fear for their safety in their neighborhood or community. We thank the brave survivors who have shown incredible strength by coming forward to work with our office to ensure this defendant faces justice.”

The defendant, Richard Olmino, 22, pleaded guilty on April 1 to first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree sexual assault, both felonies. The defendant was also sentenced to 20 years of probation and must register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.

On June 23, 2023, at approximately 12 p.m., the defendant asked a 16-year-old jogger for help in Rye Town Park, then took her cell phone and threw her to the ground as she attempted to run away. The defendant told the victim he had a knife before exposing himself and sexually assaulting her. A park security guard interrupted the attack, after which the defendant fled. Police recovered the defendant’s cell phone at the scene.

DNA evidence from the incident linked the defendant to another incident that occurred on June 3, 2023, on Parsons Street in Rye. There, at approximately 1:36 a.m., the defendant approached an 18-year-old female who was on her way home from an after-prom party and asked her for help. He then took her cell phone, threatened her, and subsequently sexually assaulted her.

The Town of Rye Police Department arrested the defendant at his Port Chester home on June 25, 2023, after police, with assistance from the Westchester County Department of Public Safety and the FBI’s Westchester Safe Streets Task Force, used the defendant’s cell phone to identify and locate him.

The defendant, who has two outstanding warrants in Connecticut, including one for public nuisance, and a criminal charge pending in Suffolk County, has been held in custody at the Westchester County District Jail since his arrest.

In a statement to the court, one of the victims said: “No matter how much I begged or cried, you showed me no mercy. In fact, you threatened to hurt me… I thought I was going to die there, alone, in the city I loved… What you did was heinous, but it did not break me. I am here today to look you in the face and say everything I could not that night.”

In a statement to the court, the second victim said: “You witnessed, exploited and took full advantage of my kindness, empathy and generosity towards you, and in that moment you made something so beautiful about me seem so ugly… What happened was not my fault, and I will never stop being kind, empathetic and generous. That is something you will never destroy about me.”

The case was heard before New York State Supreme Court Judge James McCarty in Westchester District Court and prosecuted by Assistant Chief of the Special Prosecution Division Michelle Lopez and Assistant District Attorney of the Sex Crimes Bureau Mollie O’Rourke, with assistance from Senior Crime Analyst Toni Garcia and Clinical Trauma Therapist Stacey Nolan Meaney.