‘You ruined my childhood.’ Centre County man gets decades in prison for child rape
A Centre County man was sentenced Tuesday to at least three decades in state prison after being convicted at trial earlier this year of child rape and statutory sexual assault.
Vladimir Y. Slavskiy, 36, of Penn Township, was sentenced by Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine to a maximum of 60 years in prison. He received credit for about eight months served in the Centre County Correctional Facility.
Slavskiy must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He was found to not be a sexually violent predator.
In an uncommon move, the sentence handed down by Grine exceeded the 20 to 40 years sought by Centre County prosecutors. His decision came shortly after the tearful child’s statement was read, one in which she spoke of the distrust and anxiety that’s developed since attacks that began when she was as young as 7.
“You ruined my childhood,” she wrote in a statement read by Centre County early outreach victim advocate Liz Rosenberg. “I will never be able to forget all the things you have done to me.”
Slavskiy was convicted in January by a Centre County jury at the end of a three-day trial. Six men and six women found he repeatedly raped the child over the course of about six years in Centre County. They deliberated more than four hours before they announced their verdict.
Centre County Assistant District Attorney Andrew J. Stover said Slavskiy’s crimes were fueled by an “evidently insatiable need to manipulate, control, and abuse his victim.” He said Slavskiy groomed the child so she would not tell anyone.
During an hourslong interview at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Centre County, the child described Slavskiy as mean, aggressive and manipulative — someone who would get mad at the “littlest things.”
In his memo to the judge, Stover said each attack caused the child “so much pain, hurt, and heartbreak.”
“Defendant took away (her) trust in men, ripped apart her family, and forced her to confront emotions and memories that no person should ever have to experience, especially a child,” Stover wrote. “The victim is strong, she is brave, and she persevered through extremely traumatizing events.”
In the same trial in January, Slavskiy was also found not guilty of two felony counts of child rape, both of which were alleged to have occurred in Erie County.
He has maintained his innocence involving the case in Centre County and pledged an appeal. Centre County First Assistant Public Defender Lora B. Rupert said jurors were “confused about what the counts even meant.”
In one unexpected trial moment, a juror twice told Grine they were “gonna have to guess” about the counts — which judges cannot clarify to jurors — and Rupert said that statement was a miscarriage of justice. Grine pushed back during the hearing, saying the statement came from the juror “out of frustration.”
Rupert sought a six- to 12-year prison sentence.
“While the jury did return a not guilty verdict on two counts for the alleged conduct in Erie County, it is questionable whether the remaining counts were simply a guess due to lack of clarity,” Rupert wrote in her memo to Grine. “Mr. Slavskiy has maintained his innocence throughout this entire process and while it is an issue for appeal, the weight and sufficiency of evidence presented did not support the guilty verdicts.”
Slavskiy is incarcerated at the Centre County Correctional Facility, where he’ll remain until he is transferred to the state prison system.