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WILKES-BARRE — Danny Maldonado cheated death nearly three years ago during a bloody triple homicide in Plymouth. Now he’s headed to state prison for cheating on his pregnant wife with one of her teenage relatives.
Maldonado, 22, of Plains Township and formerly of New Jersey, will spend 2-1/2 to 5 years behind bars under a sentence handed down Monday by Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas.
According to a criminal complaint, Maldonado coerced a 14-year-old girl into having a sexual relationship because his wife wasn’t able to have sex during her pregnancy and after she gave birth to a daughter in November 2013.
Homicide case
Maldonado survived three gunshot wounds on July 7, 2012 — including one to his head — when his brother, Nicholas Maldonado, 17, Bradley Swartwood, 21, and Lisa Abaunza, 15, were killed in an apartment on First Street, Plymouth, in what state police at Wyoming termed a drug robbery.
Half-brothers Shawn Hamilton, 20, and Sawud Davis, 17, pleaded guilty to the homicides in December 2013. The pair, who both were from Philadelphia but living in Nanticoke when arrested, were sentenced to life in prison.
“I feel remorseful about it, but I really don’t feel that sorry,” Hamilton told Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough in his final statement before being sent off to a life in prison. “If I was sorry, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
Following a series of tearful statements from their victims’ families, Davis told the judge that “things happen.”
For Maldonado, the road to recovery was a painful one. After emerging from a coma, he struggled with false memories, such fleeing the shooting scene in a red Cadillac.
As reported in a February 2013 Times Leader interview, it wasn’t until July 24, 2012 that Maldonado found out his brother and two others were dead.
Maldonado went on to spend long hours in rehab, struggling to overcome the devastating effects of his traumatic injuries.
‘I’m dying to love you’
In hearing testimony last year, the teen Maldonado had sex with said he began pressuring her to have sex in early November 2013. She said she told Maldonado, “No” the first couple of times he asked to kiss her.
The teen said Maldonado’s advances escalated over a period of weeks from kissing and groping to intercourse and oral sex, according to testimony and the criminal complaint.
In February 2014, the teen’s mother discovered private messages between her daughter and Maldonado on Facebook, including one in which he told the girl, “I’m dying to love you.”
Maldonado told the girl he was going to run away with her and leave his wife. He said his wife was not treating him well and wouldn’t do certain sexual things that he wanted. When his wife was pregnant and after she gave birth, she wasn’t able to have sex with Maldonado, and Maldonado told the girl he needed sex, the complaint says.
Legal proceedings
Maldonado’s wife and the teen’s mother, on behalf of her daughter, filed protection-from-abuse orders against Maldonado in February 2014, according to court records.
District Judge Martin Kane last June forwarded charges of rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, indecent assault, child endangerment and corruption of minors against Maldonado to Luzerne County Court.
In a Jan. 9 plea, Maldonado admitted to one count of unlawful contact with minors.
In addition to prison time, Lupas on Monday sentenced Maldonado to spend two years on special probation after his release. He was granted 342 days’ credit for time served since last April.
Maldonado must register as a tier III sex offender for 25 years, complete sexual offender treatment, and is to have no contact with the victim or minors. He also will not be allowed to have unsupervised contact with his own children without their mother’s consent.
He was not, however, deemed a sexually violent predator.