A Long Island man pleaded guilty Monday to raping a 14-year-old girl who disappeared for nearly a month last year.
Kevin McDonald, a 21-year-old Bellport resident, admitted to a single count of second-degree rape, Newsday reported. Prosecutors will recommend a six-month prison sentence and 10 years of probation at his sentencing hearing on Dec. 3.
McDonald had been accused of raping the teenager outside a home in Bellport on Dec. 10, 2024, one day after she had been reported missing from her home in Patchogue.
The victim told police she met McDonald in his vehicle, smoked marijuana with him and had sex in the car before he drove her to the Starwood Inn in Bohemia. That was the last place she was seen before her father found her on a yacht on Jan. 3, 2025.
An investigation into the girl’s disappearance and subsequent sex trafficking has led to 23 arrests across two states. McDonald is the first person to plead guilty in the case; 11 of the 23 suspects have been charged with felony crimes.
Defense attorneys said McDonald had no prior interactions with the other suspects in the case, and he had no prior interactions with the criminal justice system.
The victim disappeared after walking out of her Patchogue home on Dec. 9, 2024, and she was discovered on a yacht belonging to Francis Burkheit that was docked in Islip on Jan. 3, 2025, investigators said.
Burkheit, 64, faces the charges first-degree kidnapping, child sex trafficking, use of a child in a sexual performance and second-degree rape in the sprawling case. Cops said he planned to take the 14-year-old girl “to the Carolinas” on his yacht.
One year before her disappearance, the girl’s family sent her to a rehab facility in Minnesota, according to a Newsday investigation. She was also abused at that facility, and two state employees are among the 23 people facing charges.
