WORCESTER— A Fitchburg man was sentenced to 20 to 25 years in state prison yesterday after being found guilty of more than a dozen charges in what police said was the abduction and rape of a 17-year-old girl over a drug-related debt owed by her brother.
A Worcester Superior Court jury deliberated for about 24 hours over five days before convicting Francis G. Leach, 26, of crimes that included home invasion, kidnapping, armed assault in a dwelling, armed burglary, armed robbery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery.
The jury of eight men and four women acquitted Mr. Leach, one of two men charged in the kidnapping and alleged sexual assault, on charges of aggravated rape, assault with intent to rape, indecent assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon and two additional counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Mr. Leach, of 79 Mount Vernon St., Fitchburg, was charged as a joint venturer in a sexual assault of the 17-year-old allegedly committed by his co-defendant, Nolen J. “Spider” Holzapfel of Fitchburg.
Mr. Holzapfel’s case was severed from that of Mr. Leach and has been continued to Wednesday.
Police said the 17-year-old was snatched from her bed about 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 25, 2004, taken from her Fitchburg home at knifepoint, sexually assaulted and driven to a boat in Newburyport.
The abduction — which was preceded by a home invasion at the 89 Birch St., Fitchburg, home of Blaine Colacchio, where police said the victim’s brother had been planning to move — was related to a debt allegedly owed to Mr. Leach by the victim’s brother as a result of a marijuana transaction, according to police and court documents. The home invaders allegedly threatened “to kill” Mr. Colacchio if he did not take them to where the girl’s brother could be found.
On tape-recorded telephone messages played for the jury by Assistant District Attorney Paula J. Frasso, Mr. Leach could be heard demanding $50,000 from the victim’s brother. The kidnapping sparked a statewide Amber Alert. The victim returned home about 14 hours later.
In his closing argument in the case, Mr. Leach’s lawyer, Thomas J. Butters, suggested that the 17-year-old went willingly with the two men, but conceded that she “probably got raped by Spider.”
Ms. Frasso said the defense’s suggestion that the girl voluntarily accompanied the men “strains credulity.”
The sentence of 20 to 25 years imposed on Mr. Leach by Judge John S. McCann was recommended by Ms. Frasso. The prosecutor said the sentence was warranted by the “heinous” nature of the crimes and the “trauma and violence” to which Mr. Colacchio and the 17-year-old were subjected.
Mr. Butters proposed a prison term of eight to 12 years. He said Mr. Leach had a “relatively minor” criminal record and described the behavior that led to yesterday’s convictions as “an aberration in his life, something that he is profoundly sorry for.”
Judge McCann, who presided over Mr. Leach’s nine-day trial, said the crimes committed against the two victims were “among the most egregious that I have ever heard.”
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