Sexting allegation increases prison term for ailing inmate, judge rules

A Nassau judge who had freed an inmate from jail — citing county costs for his cancer care — upped the man’s expected prison term Friday after an allegation that the Lindenhurst resident sexted a nurse while on house arrest.

Now Andrew Quattrone, 33, will spend 2 to 4 years in prison in connection with his February 2015 arrest.

Police had alleged he tried to lure two 14-year-old girls in Massapequa Park into making an “adult video” after showing them explicit photos and condoms.

A grand jury indicted Quattrone on offenses that included felony counts of trying to use a child in a sex performance. But he struck a deal in April by pleading guilty to lesser felony charges of criminal solicitation.

“I should not have victimized those innocent girls,” he told acting state Supreme Court Justice Terence Murphy on Friday.

But Murphy revoked the April deal he’d made to give Quattrone a sentence of 1 1⁄2 to 3 years in prison, saying it had hinged on the man not getting in more trouble.

A month before Quattrone’s plea, Murphy had let him out of jail on his own recognizance and canceled his $500,000 bond, saying he understood the man would “have an extended stay in the hospital.”

At the time of Quattrone’s plea, Murphy also ordered him to wear a GPS monitoring device and only to leave his family’s home for medical or religious reasons.

Prosecutors had objected to the judge’s decision to release Quattrone from jail, calling the man “a danger to children.”

“I took a lot of heat for that decision,” Murphy told Quattrone on Friday.

Murphy previously said the county’s cost of providing medical care for Quattrone, including correction officers keeping a 24-hour hospital watch, was one of “myriad factors” he considered while deciding to let him out of jail. But last week, he sent Quattrone back to jail after the sexting allegation surfaced.

Assistant District Attorney Christine Guida appealed for the maximum sentence Friday, saying Suffolk authorities had filed a harassment violation against Quattrone for allegedly sending explicit texts to the nurse that included a penis photo.

“Based on the allegations, the judge really had no other choice, so he did what he had to do,” Quattrone’s Mineola attorney, Joshua Kahn, said Friday of his client’s sentence.

Quattrone previously pleaded guilty to reduced charges and went to prison after a 2009 arrest for trying to solicit sex acts from three girls while out on bail in a gun case.

“Our communities are safer today with this predator behind bars,” District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement Friday.