Eric Freeman found guilty of burglary, rape in break-ins at four homes
A Suffolk County jury found a Bellport man guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a home he was burglarizing.
Eric Freeman, 48, of Bellport, was found guilty of four counts of burglary and one count of rape in the burglaries of four homes and attempting to rape another woman at another home.
A jury convicted Freeman on Friday on charges including: four counts of burglary, two counts of rape, four counts of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, four counts of attempted burglary, assault, sexual abuse and nine misdemeanors.
Freeman faces up to life in prison as a repeat felony offender when he is scheduled to be sentenced March 20.
“Mr. Freeman continues to maintain his innocence and is disappointed with the verdict of the jury,” his attorney, Christopher M. Gioe, said Friday night. “He intends on utilizing any and all appeals available to him.”
Freeman burglarized the four homes between June 22, 2021, and July 16, 2021, where women were inside, according to evidence presented at the trial.
At the first home he went to in Bay Shore, he sexually assaulted the 16-year-old girl and threatened to kill her when she screamed for help, according to Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.
Three days later, Freeman tried to break into a home in Bellport and told a woman he needed water. He returned to the house a week later and broke in, where he tried to rape a different woman who was living alone in an attached apartment, Suffolk prosecutors said.
Freeman choked the woman but she was able to stop him from further assaulting her by offering him money, prosecutors said. Three days later, he returned to the same woman’s home to taunt and harass her, prosecutors said.
“This defendant, a previously convicted Level Three sex offender who was out on bail for failing to register as a sex offender, brazenly targeted women who were alone in their homes,” said District Attorney Raymond Tierney. “During the commission of his crimes, he sexually assaulted two women, and then returned to harass one of his victims to terrify her further. This conviction ensures that he will no longer pose a threat to women or any other Suffolk County residents.”
Freeman broke into another Bellport home while a woman and her 11- year-old son were inside and stole money and other belongings from the home, prosecutors said.
Suffolk County police arrested Freeman later that day where he was found with several stolen valuables in his pockets.
A judge released Freeman on his own recognizance and ordered him to wear a GPS ankle monitor, but he let the battery die so he could not be tracked, prosecutors said.
Less than four days later, Freeman broke into a Huntington Station apartment where a woman was home with her 7-year-old daughter. Freeman stole money inside the house and choked her in front of her child, prosecutors said.
Freeman ran from the home after the mother and her daughter began screaming and banging on the walls to neighborhood apartment and was arrested nearby, according to prosecutors.
While Freeman was awaiting trial, he was indicted in November on charges of trying to smuggle fentanyl into the jail though a defense attorney, unaware of his plans. Those charges are still pending.
John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.
