Former Bucks prosecutor sentenced for corrupting teens

A former Bucks County prosecutor was sentenced this afternoon to at least three months of house arrest after he pleaded guilty to corrupting three teenage boys in his church's youth group.

Anthony Cappuccio, 32, of Perkasie, admitted in Bucks County Court that he plied the boys with alcohol at concerts, smoked marijuana with them, and had an ongoing sexual relationship with one of them. Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. imposed a three- to 23-month sentence, to be served on house arrest, followed by seven years of probation.

"You put your own wants above the rules you were pledged to enforce," Fritsch said, telling Cappuccio he had betrayed everyone who had held him up as a role model.

Cappuccio was a senior prosecutor in the Bucks County District Attorney's office until two police officers found him parked, partially clothed, with one of the boys Sept. 5 in a Richland Township parking lot.

A married father of two small children, he admitted that, while acting as the boys' church youth group leader, he had bought alcohol for them and smoked marijuana with them at rock concerts, and had engaged in regular sexual liaisons with one of the boys for several months before his arrest.

Sobbing on the witness stand, Cappuccio apologized to his family, church, former colleagues and the youths, none of whom was present. "I was the adult, and I should have known better," he said.

Defense attorney Louis Busico said Cappuccio had been living in denial of his sexual orientation for many years before acting upon it.

"He was living a lie," Busico said. "And the lesson here is that you have to be true to yourself."

But Senior Deputy Attorney General E. Marc Costanzo called that a diversion, saying that giving teens booze and pot, and having sex with them would be a crime whether it involved boys or girls.

"This isn't a case about his struggles with his sexual identity," Costanzo said. "It is about an adult put in a position of trust with children."