Kevin McDonald, of Bellport, pleads guilty to rape in case of missing Long Island girl

A Bellport man pleaded guilty Monday to the rape of a 14-year-old Patchogue girl who was missing for 25 days last year, marking the first guilty plea in a sprawling indictment charging 11 people with felony crimes related to the victim's disappearance.

Kevin McDonald, 21, in pleading guilty to second-degree rape, also known as statutory rape, admitted before acting state Supreme Court Justice Karen Wilutis to having sex with the girl outside a Bellport residence on Dec. 10, 2024, the day after she was reported missing by her parents.

Prosecutors will recommend McDonald be sentenced to 6 months in the county jail, followed by 10 years of probation. He will be required to register as a sex offender, Wilutis said.

"Yes ma'am" and "Yes sir," McDonald said as the justice and Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Zachary Kelly informed him of the various ways his guilty plea will impact his case, including the waiver of his right to appeal his conviction.

Newsday is not naming the girl because she is a minor and the alleged victim of sex crimes.

Defense attorney Melissa Aguanno, of Holbrook, declined to comment before her client's Dec. 3 sentencing. A sex offender risk assessment hearing will also be held on that date, when Wilutis will review a presentencing assessment and hear arguments from attorneys before making a judicial determination on the likelihood McDonald would reoffend.

The girl told police McDonald, who was 20 at the time, was sitting in a 1998 Honda Accord on Michigan Avenue in North Bellport when she approached him and entered the vehicle, Suffolk County police records show. They smoked marijuana and had sex before he drove her to a motel in Bohemia, she told investigators. Statutory rape is a "strict liability" crime, meaning it is irrelevant if a person knows their victim's actual age, according to the law. It is designated a violent felony.

Prosecutors previously said McDonald was seen dropping the girl off on surveillance footage from Starwood Inn. A manger at the motel told Newsday the girl said she was searching for a friend before leaving the property. It was the last place she was seen before her discovery on a yacht in Islip Jan. 3, records show.

Aguanno described her client at his Feb. 13 arraignment as someone with no prior contacts with the criminal justice system. She said he was employed and had graduated from Bellport High School with honors two years earlier. He was not associated with anyone else charged in the indictment.

The girl had left her house about 24 hours earlier on the evening of Dec. 9 and spent that night in a house on Doane Avenue with Alton Harrell, 36, before she approached McDonald while barefoot, court papers say. After leaving the motel, the girl spent the next three weeks in various other locations with men and women accused of kidnapping and trafficking her, according to officials.

In total, 23 people in two states have been charged with crimes related to the Patchogue girl for various offenses dating back to 2023, a Newsday investigation found. Charges are still pending against 16 of those individuals, including two state workers accused of abuse at residential centers where the girl was housed after she was found Jan. 3 on a yacht docked at an Islip marina.

Harrell, yacht owner Francis Buckheit, 65, of East Islip, and Daniel Burke, 64, of Bohemia, are all facing first-degree kidnapping charges for allegedly housing the girl during her December disappearance and face the possibility of being sentenced to 25 years to life in prison if convicted at trial. Robert Eccleston, 61, of Islip, was charged with second-degree kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of up to 25 years behind bars. 

Elizabeth Hunter, 35, of Islip, and Jacqueline Comiskey, 52, of Bellport, are facing child sex trafficking charges for allegedly trading the girl for sex with men in exchange for drugs and money, prosecutors have said. 

Eight men, including Harrell, Buckheit, Burke and Eccleston, are accused in the indictment of raping the girl at locations across southwestern Suffolk County during her disappearance. A ninth man was charged with attempted rape.

Four men previously pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct in St. Cloud, Minnesota, that state's equivalent to statutory rape, after the same girl ran away from a youth rehabilitation facility there in May 2024, a Newsday investigation found. The men were each accused of having sex with the girl while she was missing in the midwestern city for three days.

Before her family sent her to Minnesota for treatment, the girl was certified in New York as a victim of sex trafficking after she was found at a Bay Shore motel with a man who allegedly supplied her with crack cocaine. Danny St. Louis, 44, of Bay Shore, is currently being held at Suffolk County jail awaiting trial on rape and trafficking charges related to the girl and at least three other women, court records show.

Two other men were arrested in 2023 and pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Criminal Court to sex offenses related to the girl when she was 12 and 13 years old, Newsday found. Brandon Keezer, 22, of Shirley, and his uncle, Daniel Keezer, 42, of Mastic Beach, are both currently incarcerated after being accused of parole violations.