White Goldstein's Criminal Defense Blog
Justice Comes Around to Biurny Peguero
Sometimes justice is sweet and well deserved. Last Tuesday, a Manhattan woman who had made a false rape accusation against a man, and subsequently sent him to prison for nearly four years, found herself on the other end of a court judgment. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon verbally reprimanded Biurny Peguero and then sentenced her to one to three years in prison.
In 2005, Peguero was with a group of girlfriends on a New York City street when she accepted an invitation to get into William McCaffrey’s car. Intoxicated, she returned to her group of friends to find them extremely upset with her. Apparently, Biurny Peguero concocted the aforementioned rape story to gain the sympathy of her friends. The lie snowballed as police detectives and attorneys became involved in the case. Peguero alleged that McCaffrey had raped her at knifepoint, and soon a citywide search for her “attacker” was underway. When McCaffrey was arrested, Peguero continued to lie to prosecutors, a grand jury and a judge.
Before her admittance of the truth, Peguero’s story got even more bizarre. She told reporters that she was “too drunk” to remember who attacked her or if she was even attacked in the first place. In a move straight out of a telenovela, Biurny Peguero dramatically confessed after a DNA test proved that she was lying and her priest urged her to come clean.
Now Peguero is singing a different song. Upon her sentencing, she tearfully apologized to William McCaffrey for robbing him of nearly four years of his life while destroying his reputation. As a mother of two, it seems clear she was hopeful that Judge Solomon would deliver a light punishment, but she was out of luck. Lying in court, especially in the state of New York, is one of those crimes for which judges really like to throw the book at the convicted. Sadly, no ruling can give William McCaffrey his four years back, but this karmic decision by the judge soundly sends the message that those who lie in court will eventually get what is coming to them.
Related: Violent Crimes Defense, Sex Crimes Defense
