Scottdale man appeals child rape conviction

A Scottdale man serving a 40-year-prison sentence for the sexual assault of a child is now claiming that Westmoreland County prosecutors coached witnesses during his trial last year.

According to an appeal filed Tuesday, Dylan Chiaramonte said the judge who presided over his rape trial improperly allowed the prosecution to elicit expert testimony based on false reports, coached testimony of sexual assault victims and erred when a forensic interviewer was allowed to tell jurors she did not observe red flags during her questioning of the victim.

In a two paragraph appeal, defense attorney Adam Gorzelsky suggested the ruling from Common Pleas Court Judge Rita Hathaway “encroached upon the jury’s determination of the victim’s credibility.”

After a three-day trial, Chiaramonte, 28, was convicted of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and corruption of a minor.

Prosecutors contended that, starting in 2011, Chiaramonte groomed and forced a 4-year-old girl into sexual acts and continued to do so for five years, sometimes daily. Witnesses at trial testified Chiaramonte manipulated the child to spend time in his locked bedroom and arranged for other adults to leave his Scottdale home to facilitate the sexual assaults.

He was sentenced in March to serve 20 to 40 years in prison.

Chiaramonte denied the allegations and told jurors was he physically unable to have sex because of his excessive weight. He claimed he weighed 625 pounds during the time when police say the sexual assaults occurred.