an inch from murder - weblog

« Jessica Lunsford | Main | Foster father charged in city in sexual abuse of 2 young girls »

March 19, 2005

Police Say Man Abused 7 Children at Former Home

An unemployed mechanic who moved last month to Long Island with his family was arrested yesterday and charged with raping and sodomizing seven children in his former neighborhood in College Point, Queens, the authorities said.

Queens prosecutors said the suspect, Michael Flory, 48, of West Hempstead, N.Y., was charged with the sexual assaults of five girls and two boys, ages 7 to 11. The police said some victims lived near and played in the house Mr. Flory had shared with his wife; their 4-year-old daughter; and two other children they raised since birth, the 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter of the sister of Mr. Flory's wife.

The authorities said they were investigating whether Mr. Flory had abused his own daughter and two stepchildren and whether his wife was aware of the molestation. Her children remain in her care.

The authorities also said that while the family lived in the first floor of the College Point home for at least five years before moving to West Hempstead, Mr. Flory had also lived in Whitestone, Queens; East Orange, N.J.; and Danbury, Conn. They said they were circulating Mr. Flory's picture in those communities to see if he had abused other children.

He was scheduled to be arraigned last night.

Neighbors of Mr. Flory in both the College Point and West Hempstead communities described him as an affable man, generous with his time. He went to church, fixed friends' cars for free, and offered to take children to the park, his neighbors said.

"He was the good neighbor, the neighbor who would take the kids to school, the neighbors whose children played with other people's children," said Deputy Inspector Ann Marie Connell, who oversees the police Special Victims Division.

She said that Mr. Flory had no criminal record and that the family had no known history with city agencies. Anthony Reyes, who lived two doors from the Flory family in College Point, described the suspect as "a standup kind of guy."

"I've never seen him in a sexual way with boys," Mr. Reyes said. "I've never even seen him carrying his own kids."

Prosecutors said the abuse dated back at least a year and took place mainly in the Flory home in College Point or in a van parked outside.

A law enforcement official said each child was abused more than once.

Investigators said they became aware of the sexual abuse on Thursday when two victims, a 7-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother, told their parents, who called the police and alerted other parents whose children had played at the Flory home. The police arrested Mr. Flory just after midnight Thursday at the West Hempstead house where he and his family had moved a few weeks ago after being evicted from the College Point home.

He was taken to a station house in Queens where, the police said, he gave both oral and written confessions, and expressed little regret about his actions. "He thinks it's O.K.," said Paul J. Browne, deputy commissioner for public information for the Police Department. "No remorse."

One of Mr. Flory's neighbors, Tina Porcari, 73, said he and his family had lived rent-free for several months after their landlord, who had lived upstairs in the same house, died in July. The landlord's daughter had to take Mr. Flory to court to evict the family, she said, describing Mr. Flory as "a taker - take, take, take - from the system and everything else."

In West Hempstead, where a yellow "Children at Play" sign is just down the street from Mr. Flory's new home, neighbors said they were glad he was arrested soon after moving there. One woman, who said her 11-year-old son had played with Mr. Flory's stepson just last week, was shocked.

"I'm devastated," said the woman, who lives one block from the Flory family and asked not to be identified because of the nature of the charges. "I'm shaken."

Posted by Nealus at March 19, 2005 12:25 PM

Comments

Post a comment