Bellport resident Jacquelyn Comiskey pleads guilty to sex trafficking girl who went missing on Long Island for 25 days

A Bellport woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to sex trafficking for arranging for a 14-year-old Patchogue girl, who was missing for 25 days and later found on a dilapidated yacht, to have sex with a man in exchange for crack cocaine.

Jacquelyn Comiskey, 54, pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead to three charges — sex trafficking of a child, promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a child — in the case of the girl, who prosecutors said was repeatedly raped and sex trafficked in the 25-day span she disappeared from Dec. 13, 2024, to Jan. 3, 2025.

Comiskey is expected to be sentenced by state Supreme Court Justice Karen Wilutis to 12 years in prison with 20 years post-release supervision in exchange for her guilty plea and waiving her right to appeal. Comiskey faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted at trial on the top count. Wilutis set sentencing for Oct. 1. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 15 years in prison.

Comiskey, under questioning in court Wednesday by Assistant District Attorney Dana Castaldo of the Suffolk district attorney’s Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau, admitted she had met the girl, whom Newsday is not naming because she is a victim of sex crimes, on a vessel belonging to co-defendant Francis Buckheit, who is charged with kidnapping and raping the girl.

Comiskey said on Jan. 2, 2025, she drove the girl to the Copiague home of Bunice Knight, her drug dealer, for the girl to have sex with Knight, then 47. Knight was later charged with raping the girl.

Comiskey admitted she had smoked crack on Buckheit’s yacht twice and Knight had asked her to pick up condoms before she dropped off the girl.

Comiskey’s guilty plea appeared to be on shaky ground as Castaldo and Comiskey’s defense attorney Michael Elbert, of Melville, argued over the details of Comiskey’s crimes during her allocution — a question and answer session between the prosecutor and defendant to establish the facts and ensure that the defendant’s conduct fits the elements of the crimes to which they’re pleading guilty.

During Comiskey’s allocution, she said she didn’t know the girl was 14 years old at the time, didn’t know if the girl and Knight had sex and didn’t know if the crack cocaine the girl had when she emerged from Knight’s home had been payment for sexual activity. She said separately that she had bought $50 worth of crack cocaine for herself from Knight that day.

Asked by Castaldo if the girl and Knight had engaged in sexual activity, Comiskey replied: “I assume.”

Elbert first objected to Castaldo’s line of questioning when she asked if Comiskey had advanced “and/or” profited from the sexual contact between the girl and Knight.

“In no way did my client profit from that,” Elbert interjected. “She is not admitting to profiting. … She advanced it.”

When Castaldo sought to confirm the girl was given crack cocaine by Knight in exchange for sex, Elbert interjected again. “My client was never given any confirmation,” he said, adding his client admitted setting up the encounter.

Castaldo then began quoting from text messages between Comiskey and Knight in which the man expressed interest in seeing the girl again, prompting Elbert to again interject, criticizing Castaldo’s line of questioning as a “cross-examination” of his client.

“She’s already acknowledged her guilt,” Elbert said. “She’s already acknowledged the elements of the crime. This is unnecessary.”

Castaldo’s questioning continued and Comiskey said of the girl, “she initiated it.”

Elbert then instructed his client not to answer the prosecutor’s questions.

“They’re just trying to assassinate my client’s character,” he told the judge.

Castaldo countered: “I think she’s minimizing her culpability.”

Wilutis called for a side bar, allowing the lawyers to make their legal arguments privately. When they returned, Castaldo continued her questioning.

Comiskey then formally entered her guilty plea. Wilutis told Comiskey: "I certify you as a sex offender." 

Twenty-three people in New York and Minnesota have been charged with crimes related to the Patchogue girl dating back to 2023, a Newsday investigation found. Before she went missing on Long Island, the girl's family sent her to a residential treatment program in Minnesota, but she ran away from the facility and at least four men were accused of sexually assaulting her, Newsday has reported.

Buckheit, 66, of East Islip, last week requested the kidnapping and rape charges against him be dismissed, while seeking to suppress statements he made to police and evidence seized from his vessel in January 2025.