Nicolaos Trintis, former owner of Bill's Cafe near Dundalk, was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for a three-year pattern of sexual abuse against a girl who lived above the bar more than three decades ago.
Trintis, 65, who faced a maximum sentence of 250 years, will remain free on bail while his lawyers file an appeal. That could take a year or more to move through the courts, a prosecutor said.
After a lengthy sentencing hearing, Trintis' victim stood in a courthouse corridor wrapped in her husband's arms. She said she had not expected to see Trintis taken into custody but the moment was still "a letdown" when it came.
It felt amazing that 12 jurors believed her testimony, the key evidence in the case, she said, but the verdict has not brought closure.
"I still have to close my eyes tonight and I'll see his face," she said. The Baltimore Sun does not name victims of sex crimes.
The case was an unusual example of a long-ago sex offense being successfully prosecuted. Investigators had no forensic evidence or medical records to go on — an issue that advocates for victims say can make it difficult to build successful cases.
The woman, who now lives in New Hampshire, was 10 years old when the abuse began in 1979. She lived above the bar, where her mother worked nights for Trintis. She came forward in 2012 after a child abuse scare in her family refreshed her recollections of what had happened to her.
A jury convicted Trintis in late April on more than a dozen counts of third-degree sex offense and four counts of sexual child abuse.
Trintis is a leader in Baltimore's Greek community and owned Bill's Cafe from the 1970s until a raid unrelated to the case in 2013. His daughters and wife praised his generosity at the court hearing. Trintis himself spoke to the judge only briefly.
"I have dedicated my life to my family," he said.
Trintis' lawyers continued to argue at the sentencing hearing that the evidence against him is thin. They asked the judge to throw the case out on a number of grounds, all of which were denied, and said they plan to appeal.
Trintis held a cane in the courtroom and had trouble standing while the sentence was imposed. A. Dwight Pettit, one of his lawyers, sought home detention, saying his client's poor health meant he would not survive in prison. Trintis has diabetes and other ailments, his lawyers said.
"I really do believe with his medical situation and his age, to impose a period of incarceration ... would be tantamount to a death sentence," Pettit said.
Judge Paul Smith said he took those concerns seriously and worried that the prison system would be unable to properly take care of Trintis. Yet he was firm that Trintis should go to prison for his crimes.
"If this case stands, and I think it will, he needs to serve time in DOC," said Smith, using a shortened acronym for the Department of Public Safety and Correction Services.
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