By Jon Ostendorff jostendorff at citizen-times.com March 16, 2007 12:15 am
WAYNESVILLE The six men castrated in a sadomasochistic dungeon fashioned from an enclosed carport all told prosecutors they saw no need for criminal charges.
Even a judge Thursday said calling the men victims might be a stretch, though what happened was certainly a crime.
"I think this is a type of perversion that cannot be tolerated by society," Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner said in sentencing three men who performed the castrations.
Richard Peter " Master Rick" Sciara and his partner of 20 years, Michael Mendez, both pleaded guilty to felony castration without malice and felony maiming without malice. The man Sciara and Mendez called their slave, Danny Carroll Reeves, also pleaded guilty to the charges.
Prosecutors said the crimes happened in 2004 and 2005 at house in a quiet neighborhood near Waynesville. In a search of the Peace Mountain Road home, investigators said they found evidence including a scrotum and a testicle kept in a freezer.
Plea deal trims charges
In exchange for the pleas, the state dropped charges of misdemeanor practicing medicine without a license and conspiracy.
Winner sentenced Sciara, 62, to a year in jail and three years' probation. Sciara has been in jail for 350 days since his arrest last year. The judge said his time served while waiting for trial would apply to his sentence. Sciara will be on six months' electronic house arrest after his release on March 29.
Mendez, 61, got four months in jail but had already served six months so he was free to go. He is on house arrest for two months and has supervised probation for three years.
Reeves, 50, got eight months in prison, but he has also been in jail since his arrest so he was allowed to leave. Reeves got four months house arrest and three years' probation.
All three will pay court costs and can't perform surgery or have surgical equipment as terms of their probation.
The only witness called to testify during the 2 1/2 hearing and sentencing was Sciara's brother, Anthony Sciara, a well-known Asheville clinical psychologist who has testified in other criminal cases.
He was there as a family member, not an expert.
Brother testifies on past
Sciara's lawyer, Roy Patton, called him to talk about his brother's past, his personality and his time in Vietnam as a Navy medical corpsman.
Anthony Sciara said his brother was different from other boys growing up but never violent. He said Sciara, from his time in Vietnam to his career as a physician's assistant at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Topeka, Kan., has always tried to help other people.
Sciara learned how to perform castrations at the VA hospital, according to court testimony.
Anthony Sciara said he accepted his brotherbs gay lifestyle and even encouraged him to move to Western North Carolina with Mendez when he retired from the VA in 1999.
Sadomasochism interests
But he said he was disgusted with his brother's interest in sadomasochism and body-modification surgery and stopped speaking to him in 2002 because of it.
In his defense, Anthony Sciara said his brother performed the surgeries only to help others.
"His concept of himself is he is a helpful person," Anthony Sciara said.
Assistant District Attorney Jim Moore said Sciara and his assistants performed the operations in the nude, and on one occasion, Sciara was drinking a beer and smoking while castrating a man.
His lawyer, Patton, disputed the claim that Sciara was drinking while performing surgery.
Voluntary body modifications
He said at least two of the men who visited the home were interested in extreme body modification.
They wanted Sciara to amputate their legs above the knees and had already each cut a finger off with garden shears to show their love for one another.
Sciara would not perform the amputation, he said.
The other men who had the procedures complained of testicular pain.
They included a computer programmer, a truck driver and an Army Reserve soldier, Patton said.
Some of the men had fake testicles called "nuteciles" implanted, and one had his penis removed entirely. Another man had the head of his penis cut off.
"(Sciara) felt like the medical system was not addressing the needs of this not-small group who had these needs, whether they were imagined or just emotional," Patton said, likening the operations to abortions and breast enhancements.
The attorneys for the three asked the judge to consider Sciara's medical experience and that the law doesn't allow for consent as a defense to the crime.
They asked Winner to sentence the men in a range that would have meant credit for time served and a less restrictive probation.
No other criminal records ' They brought up Sciara's and Mendez's military record. Mendez got a Bronze Star in Vietnam for carrying a wounded soldier to safety under fire.
None of the men had prior criminal records.
If the men had prior criminal histories and the state had been able to prove more aggravating factors in the case, they could have faced several years in prison.
Bill Leslie, Reeves' lawyer, said his client was happy with the outcome.
"The judge did the right thing, and my client is walking out of jail today, so he's happy," Leslie said. Patton said the men plan to start their life together again once Sciara is released. They will have to stay in North Carolina for now because of the probation.