Decades-long prison term for man who raped 5-year-old godson

Eric Maloy provided day care for the child. Credit: Rikard Larma/Metro

A Philadelphia man received a hefty jail sentence today for raping his 5-year-old godson in 2011.

Judge Donna Woelpper this afternoon sentenced 45-year-old Eric Maloy to 36 to 72 years in prison. The sentence fell slightly short of the 101-year maximum prosecutors initially sought.

Prosecutors said the victim’s working mother was unable to afford day camp, so Maloy volunteered to have the boy stay with him for periods of time. Maloy soon began sexually assaulting the child and continued until the victim told other family members.

Maloy had been arrested in the past for numerous child rapes and one homicide, but was never convicted.

“The defendant would manipulate the system by bribing witnesses and sending his victims to distant locations in the days preceding trial dates,” the District Attorney’s Office said in a release. Prosecutors charged that even in Maloy’s most recent trial, two necessary witnesses “mysteriously relocated to Georgia” just weeks before it began.

“Three of his prior victims were able to be located and two of them testified at the trial,” the District Attorney’s Office said.

The victims, who are now men in their 20s, both began living with Maloy when their own families were not capable of caring for them. They described during the trial how Maloy had sodomized them when they were between the ages of 15 and 18.

Prosecutors believe Maloy developed a pattern of identifying vulnerable children and assuming a parental role to take advantage of them.

A jury on Dec. 3 convicted Maloy of child rape, involuntary deviate sexual and indecent assault of a child, welfare endangerment and corrupting the morals of a child.

“This child showed enormous courage in testifying to such horrible crimes and by doing so has protected other children in our community,” Assistant District Attorney Branwen McNabb said.