Columbia County sex crime suspect faces new…
Columbia County sex crime suspect faces new charges
NYSP photo
John Acklin
By Diane Pineiro-Zucker | dpineiro-zucker@freemanonline.com and Diane Pineiro-Zucker | Daily Freeman
PUBLISHED: March 26, 2019 at 4:40 p.m. | UPDATED: July 21, 2021 at 6:26 a.m.
LIVINGSTON, N.Y. – A former town resident who moved to Texas about a decade ago has been charged with five felony counts of sexual abuse of children under the age of 11, the Columbia County District Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
John Acklin, 56, of Bandera, Texas, was charged by state police late Monday in the Columbia County Jail, where he already was being held without bail on a felony count of criminal sex act stemming from a 2018 arrest, according to Assistant District Attorney Jim Carlucci.
Acklin was taken into custody in Texas on Oct. 25, 2018, and extradited to New York on Nov. 8, state police said at the time.
The new charges involve the same children as the initial charge, Carlucci said.
Carlucci said prosecutors originally thought there were two children involved but have come to believe there were three. All have made allegations about Acklin to local authorities, the prosecutor said.
Carlucci declined to discuss the ages or genders of the victims in order to avoid "somehow identifying these kids." He said they did not all live in Livingston but were Columbia County residents at the times of the alleged crimes.
Acklin left Livingston about 10 years ago, and the alleged sexual abuse ceased when he moved away, Carlucci said.
Acklin continues to be held without bail.
Editor's note: This story was amended on March 27, 2019 at 9:29 a.m. to correct that the prior arrest happened in 2018, not the incident.
Diane Pineiro-Zucker