CHENANGO COUNTY – In three years of arrests, the District Attorney’s Office has successfully prosecuted 34 of the 37 people arrested for felony sex crimes in Chenango County.

From 2004 to 2006, the county court dealt out over 156 years of minimal prison time and nearly 190 years maximum, plus over 130 years of post-release supervision over the 34 completed cases. Accompanying the majority of those terms was the mandatory life-long registration on the sex offender database.

Of the three not prosecuted, one person fled, one is still in the judicial process and one had their charges dismissed because they had more serious federal charges pending. The defendant in that case was found guilty and sentenced to federal prison.

In the numbers released by the Chenango County Court, the average sentence for any person committing a felony sex crime locally was three to five years in state prison.

Four of the 37 defendants prosecuted brought their case before a trial jury and all were found guilty of at least one count against them. The average sentence in those four convictions was 14 to 17.5 years in prison.