Damon Rallis sentencing delayed again; hearing pushed to early April

Damon Rallis, a longtime Southold Town building department employee and one-time candidate for Town Supervisor, will not be sentenced for possession of child sex abuse materials as expected this week due to his attorney’s scheduling conflicts.

Mr. Rallis, 50, was set to be sentenced in federal district court in Islip on Tuesday, March 11, by Judge Joan Azrack. However, his attorney, Jason Russo, submitted a request dated March 5 to push back the court date another 30 days. The new sentencing date is currently set for Tuesday, April 8, at 3 p.m.

“My client and I have completed our sentencing submissions, and I am just in the process of adding some letters my office received on his behalf,” Mr. Russo wrote. “I am presently on trial in a homicide matter in Nassau County Court, however, I will have completed that trial by the end of this month.”

Mr. Rallis pleaded guilty to possession of child sex abuse materials in April 2023 and was initially scheduled to be sentenced in October 2023. This is the fourth time Mr. Rallis’s sentencing has been delayed — the case was previously adjourned to give the United States Probation Department additional time to complete Mr. Rallis’s pre-sentence report.

Mr. Rallis faces a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and minimum five years under supervised release, with a maximum of life. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

In a memorandum filed on March 7, Mr. Russo requested the judge sentence Mr. Rallis to the mandatory minimum of five years in prison and impose no fine or financial penalty, due to Mr. Rallis’ inability to pay the fine.

For more than a year following the first adjournment, there had been no word on a sentencing date until the fall of 2024, when a hearing notice was issued for Nov. 14. Mr. Russo requested the sentencing be pushed to January 2025 at that time, citing that he had a “full trial calendar for the next six weeks” and was in the middle of preparing sentencing materials with Mr. Rallis.

According to court documents, Mr. Rallis, who previously served as vice chairman of Southold Town’s Democratic Committee, became the subject of a federal investigation after he reportedly shared a pair of sexually explicit videos of toddlers with an undercover FBI agent. The images were distributed via an “invite-only” group chat on the social media platform Kik in 2020 under the online alias “dirtydaddy431.”

Investigators executed a search warrant and raided Mr. Rallis’ Southold home in February 2021. At an arraignment hearing later that year, assistant U.S. attorney Paul Scotti said agents discovered a hidden camera that was angled to capture images of visitors using the bathroom in his home. 

During the raid, Mr. Rallis, who had been a Boy Scout master in Greenport, admitted to law enforcement that he had viewed and posted child sex abuse materials and that he would delete images after viewing them, according to a sworn affidavit from an FBI special agent. 

Following his guilty plea in April 2023, Mr. Rallis was released on a $200,000 bond and placed on house arrest, though an application was granted to allow Mr. Rallis to leave his residence between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. By the time Mr. Rallis is sentenced, he will have undergone more than 48 months of court-ordered supervision.

In the memorandum, Mr. Russo urged the judge to consider other non-statutory mitigating factors prior to sentencing, such as Mr. Rallis’ acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with authorities, his unlikeness to reoffend or commit further crimes, his likely affirmative response to future supervision and the hardship incarceration would have on his family.

Mr. Russo raised statutory factors for the court to consider as well, including Mr. Rallis’ family history, personal experiences with sexual abuse, struggles with substance abuse, mental health issues and his loss of employment following his arrest.

“This Court should consider the fact Defendant’s 20-year career has effectively ended with his arrest, and that this case has negatively impacted his family’s emotional and financial health as a result,” the document read. “Given Damon Rallis’s medical situation and his family situation outlined [in the sentencing memorandum,] the mandatory minimum sentence will be more than sufficient to deter him and others similarly [situated] from engaging in similar criminal conduct.”