MAYS LANDING, NJ — On Thursday, September 3, 2026, Emmanuel Rodriguez, 34, from Mays Landing, NJ, was sentenced by the Honorable Pamela D’Arcy, P.J.Cr., to a term of 35 years in New Jersey State Prison subject to both the Jessica Lunsford Act and the No Early Release Act. The defendant must also register under Megan’s Law upon his release from State Prison and must also serve parole supervision for life.
In sentencing the defendant to this prison term, the Court found the defendant poses “a high risk of reoffending,” and “had no remorse for victimizing his minor cousin,” by performing “repetitive sexual acts,” on her over a lengthy period of time when the child was only nine years old and the defendant was 20 years older than her.
On January 1, 2023, the Hamilton Township Police Department received a report of a minor who was sexually assaulted by her mother’s cousin, the defendant, who is twenty years older than the victim. The victim disclosed that the defendant groomed her online with sexually inappropriate conversations and the exchange of explicit photographs. The contact progressed to the defendant arranging multiple “dates” with the then nine-year-old victim and asking her “to be his girlfriend.” During those “dates” the defendant had various forms of unlawful sexual contact with the victim.
The victim delayed disclosing the abuse. She did not want to tell anyone what the defendant did to her because she loved his family and did not want the defendant in trouble. She disclosed two years after the abuse ended, when she was 11 years old.
Once the report was made to police, a joint investigation between the Hamilton Township Police Department and the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office led to a consensual intercept of the defendant’s in person conversation with the victim’s mother. During that conversation, the defendant admitted to inappropriate sexual contact, but did so in a self-serving way, minimizing what he did to the victim. However, the defendant repeatedly apologized to the victim’s mother and claimed, “he was already seeking help” and “knew he was wrong.”
During a jury trial this May, the now 14-year-old victim bravely testified for hours. The jury, in convicting the defendant of all charges, rejected the defendant’s self-serving version of events and believed the victim’s account of how she was sexually abused by the defendant.
Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Fischer represented the State in this matter.
Mays Landing Man Sentenced for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child
