Daughter jailed for hiring classmate to murder father

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 10

Daughter jailed for hiring classmate to murder father

NZPA-Reuter Riverhead, New York A high school student was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday for /hiring a classmate to murder her father who sexually abused her. Cheryl Pierson, a former cheerleader, fainted as she was sentenced, by Judge Harvey Sherman in/suburban Long Island. / i She had pleaded guilty to manslaughter last March in the shooting death of her father, James, aged 41, by Sean Pica on February 5, 1986, in the driveway of her family home. She told the police her father had forced her to have sexual intercourse with him and she feared her eight-year-old sister would be the next victim.

Pierson, aged 18, sat nervously awaiting sentence. She burst into tears when her lawyer, Paul Gianelli, emerged from the Judge’s Chamber and whispered the sentence to her.

When the Judge announced the sixmonth jail term; Pierson slumped forward, fainted, but was revived soon after.

The sentence provoked widely differing opinions as debate continued on whether Pierson was an incest victim driven to desperate measures or a coldblooded killen . "She already has been punished by her father’s incessant demand

she submit to sexual intercourse,” Mr Gianelli said. But the Assistant District Attorney, Edward Jablonski, said that “whether she was abused or not, she took the law into her own hands and should be punished for it” Mr Jablonski, who had asked for a two to six year prison term, said: “Our greatest concern was that she would get only probation.” Virginia Pierson, the girl’s paternal grandmother, who stood by her at the time of her arrest but who has turned against her recently, said "This will send the message to others that you don’t have to kill anybody.” She has refused to believe her son sexually assaulted his daughter. Pica, aged 18, the son of a retired New York City police officer, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is serving an eight to 24 year jail term. He admitted he hid in shrubbery with a rifle and pumped five bullets into Pierson, an electrician, as he emerged from his home to go to work. The girl admitted she paid Pica SUS4OO to kill her father. She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and suffered a miscarriage while on bail.

Laboratory tests indicated the pregnot caused by her father.