Bellport resident Jacquelyn Comiskey gets 12 years for sex trafficking Patchogue girl in 2024

A Bellport woman was sentenced to 12 years in state prison Thursday for sex trafficking a 14-year-old Patchogue girl in exchange for crack cocaine, one of several defendants who authorities said participated in the abuse of the girl when she was missing for 25 days.

Jacquelyn Comiskey, 54, pleaded guilty in August to felony charges of sex trafficking of a child and promoting prostitution and to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child in the case of the girl, who prosecutors said was raped and sex trafficked while she was missing from Dec. 13, 2024, to Jan. 3, 2025. She was found on a dilapidated yacht in Islip.

In addition to the prison sentence for sex trafficking, State Supreme Court Justice Karen Wilutis sentenced Comiskey to 20 years of postrelease supervision on that charge, 4 to 12 years in prison for promoting prostitution and 364 days for the misdemeanor charge. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Comiskey faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted at trial on the top count. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 15 years in prison.

Comiskey, who wore street clothes in court, declined an opportunity from Wilutis to address the Riverhead courtroom. No victim impact statements were read.

Prosecutor Dana Castaldo, in an attempt to get the judge to reconsider the agreed-upon 12-year sentence and impose a lengthier term, pointed to statements made by Comiskey to probation officials contained in her presentencing report, which Castaldo said tried to downplay her conduct.

"This defendant does indeed minimize her conduct ... [and] puts blame on the victim," Castaldo told the judge before the sentence was handed down. "I want to reiterate this was a 14-year-old child."

Comiskey’s defense attorney, Michael Elbert, argued that his client’s remarks in the presentencing report were consistent with what she said when she pleaded guilty. He also said the victim had presented herself as being 19 years old.

"She didn’t actually profit from it, nor was that an element of the crime, which everyone in this case knows," said Elbert.

He added: "My client was the one who called the police and stopped this child abuse."

During the brief sentencing hearing, Castaldo and Elbert continued to argue over the facts of the case, much like the two lawyers did when Comiskey pleaded guilty.

"It was well-known when my client called the victim’s father ... she was extremely upset with the father and didn't want to go," said Elbert. "These are facts."

Castaldo countered: "There is absolutely no evidence that the victim was upset or extremely angry. ... That is not a fact. That is not evidence and there is no witness that is going to testify to that."

Wilutis asked Comiskey if she stood by her plea; Comiskey replied that she was, and the judge continued with the agreed-upon sentence. Wilutis also issued a permanent stay-away order, prohibiting Comiskey from attempting to contact the victim.

When she pleaded guilty, Comiskey admitted in open court that on Jan. 2, 2025, she drove the girl, whom Newsday is not naming because she is the victim of sex crimes, to the Copiague home of Bunice Knight, her drug dealer, for the girl to have sex with Knight, then 47. Knight was charged with raping the girl.

Comiskey admitted she had twice smoked crack on a dilapidated yacht belonging to Francis Buckheit, who is charged with kidnapping and raping the girl, and Knight had asked her to pick up condoms before she dropped off the girl.

A total of 23 individuals in New York and Minnesota have been charged with committing crimes against the girl dating to 2023, according to a Newsday investigation.

Before she went missing on Long Island, she ran away from a residential treatment program in Minnesota, where the girl's family had sent her, and at least four men allegedly sexually assaulted her while she was in Minnesota, Newsday has reported.

Buckheit, along with several other Long Island co-defendants, is scheduled to go on trial early next year on charges of child sex trafficking, rape and kidnapping. Buckheit has sought to have the court throw out statements he made to police and evidence that was seized from his vessel. That request is pending.