A Sullivan County jury convicted a 52-year-old Liberty man on Friday of repeatedly raping his stepdaughter over more than a decade, starting when she was just 5 years old. Joseph Wallace was found guilty of three counts of predatory sexual assault against a child and one count of third-degree rape following a five-day trial.
Sullivan County District Attorney Brian P. Conaty announced the verdicts, saying the jury found Wallace vaginally raped his stepdaughter on numerous occasions from the time she was five years old until she was 16, according to a statement reported by einnews.com. As Daily Voice reported, prosecutors said the abuse began at the family home in 2010 and continued for years afterward.
A Decade of Abuse Laid Out at Trial
Jurors found that on July 1, 2010, Wallace raped his five-year-old stepdaughter while the two were left alone at the family residence. Just over three months later, on October 7, 2010, he assaulted her again — this time while her mother lay in a hospital bed recovering from the birth of Wallace's son, per the district attorney's account.
The pattern did not stop there. Between May 31, 2012, and June 23, 2017, the jury found that Wallace vaginally raped his stepdaughter at least once more and committed two additional acts of sexual conduct against her, the district attorney's office said.
Caught in the Act in 2020
The final incident covered by the convictions happened in the early morning hours of September 7, 2020, when Wallace entered his stepdaughter's bedroom and raped her before her mother caught him in the act, prosecutors said. That confrontation came a decade after the abuse first began at the family's home.
The case was investigated by Investigator Robert Breault and Senior Investigator Nancy Stack of the Orange County Child Abuse Unit, the district attorney's office said. District Attorney Conaty prosecuted the case at trial with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney James McGlashin, per the same announcement.
Sentencing Set for January, Maximum of 82 Years to Life
Wallace is scheduled to be sentenced on January 27, 2027, at 10 a.m., where he faces a maximum potential sentence of 82 years to life incarceration, according to the district attorney's office. The sentence ultimately imposed has not been determined.
News 12 identified Wallace as 51 in September 2025, while the verdict announcement listed him as 52 in October 2026: News 12 reported on the 2025 charges against him.
Not an Isolated Case in Sullivan County
Wallace's conviction follows other predatory sexual assault cases prosecuted by Conaty's office in the county. Lavaun Weir, 33, of Monticello, was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison after a Sullivan County jury convicted him of predatory sexual assault against a child involving abuse between June 2011 and July 2014, according to a statement posted by the Sullivan County government. That announcement said Weir, who was more than 18 years old at the time, engaged in two or more acts of sexual conduct with a child under 13.
