Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey said a former assistant youth minister was sentenced today to serve 10 years in a New Jersey state prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl while he served at a church in Piscataway.
Ronald L. Wilcox, 61, of Fruitland, Md., also was fined $3,055 and is required to register as a Megan’s Law offender when he is released from custody.
Superior Court Judge Alberto Rivas, sitting in New Brunswick, also reduced the defendant’s sentence by 384 days he has already served in custody since his arrest.
Wilcox pleaded guilty on December 21, 2015 to a count of aggravated sexual assault, admitting that he sexually assaulted the child between July 1996 and October 1998.
The defendant pleaded guilty after reaching an agreement with Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Miralles Walsh.
Wilcox, who lived in Piscataway at the time of the sexual assault, was charged during an investigation by Detective Kenneth L. Saunders Jr. of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and Detective Robert Rose of the Piscataway Police Department.
During the investigation it was determined that Wilcox sexually assaulted the teenager at a church office and at her home while he served as a Deacon-in-training and assisted the youth ministry at the Macedonia Freewill Baptist Church in Piscataway.
The investigation began after the victim, now an adult, told a relative, who contacted authorities.