SWAMPSCOTT — A former Swampscott man will spend six to seven years in state prison after admitting yesterday that he purchased alcohol for three teenage girls, then sexually abused two of them for months.
Robert Kincaid, 40, pleaded guilty to four counts of child rape and three counts of providing alcohol to minors during a hearing yesterday in Salem Superior Court.
Judge John Lu imposed the six- to seven-year prison term, followed by five years of probation, a sentence that had originally been offered by Judge Timothy Feeley during a plea negotiation last year.
Prosecutor Michael Sheehan had been seeking a longer, seven-to-nine-year term, calling Kincaid's actions "an abuse of a position of trust" he had been placed in when the girls, who were 14 and 15 at the time, were at his home visiting his teenage son.
Sheehan said Kincaid, who was in his late 30s at the time, regularly provided alcohol not only to his son, then 13, but to his son's friends, three girls who visited the home on Berkshire Street where Kincaid lived at the time of the incidents.
What was going on in the home came to light in early 2010, after authorities learned about the alcohol Kincaid was giving his son, Sheehan said.
During the course of an investigation by Swampscott police and the Department of Children and Families, investigators learned that starting in the summer of 2009, Kincaid had regularly been providing vodka to the teens.
One of the girls told investigators that Kincaid began telling her that she was beautiful and then began engaging in various sex acts with her after she had been drinking.
Then a second girl, who had just finished the eighth grade, told investigators that Kincaid had also pursued her, though it appears in a far more aggressive manner that included online instant message "chats" and phone calls in which he told her that she was beautiful, that he loved her and that he wanted to marry her.
He even created an email address that incorporated her name, Sheehan told the judge.
"She felt flattered," the prosecutor told the judge. For months, they engaged in various sexual acts, including intercourse, he said.
That girl yesterday told Lu in a victim-impact statement about her ongoing struggle to "move on" from what had happened to her starting in the summer after eighth grade.
"It's difficult for me to accept," said the girl, now 16, who was joined on the witness stand by her mother. "I realized I had been manipulated and used."
She dealt with the pain by cutting herself over and over, she said.
"I felt completely destroyed and useless," she told the court.
Even today, with counseling, she struggles with accepting compliments "because I think, 'What do they want from me?'" she told the judge.
Kincaid's lawyer, Rebecca Whitehill, had urged a shorter sentence, noting that state sentencing guidelines called for between three and five years in prison.
"Mr. Kincaid is extremely regretful of the incidents that occurred," said Whitehill, who cited her client's abuse of alcohol as a factor in what happened.
Just as the incidents were being investigated by police, Kincaid was hospitalized for depression, she said.
After his release from prison, Kincaid will be required to register as a sex offender, take part in sex offender treatment, and have no contact with any of the victims or any children under 14.
He also faces a potential lifetime commitment to a state prison hospital if deemed a sexually dangerous person after completing his term.
The case bore some similarities to one that went to trial last fall. A Marblehead man, John Murphy, was found guilty of providing alcohol for two teenagers, then raping one of them in a Marblehead park in 2009. Murphy was sentenced to nine to 11 years in prison following his trial in November.
Courts reporter Julie Manganis may be reached at 978-338-2521 or jmanganis@salemnews.com.
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