ÈËÊÞÐÔ½»

William Morrissey III, 33, a former member of the Auburn Police Department who was a school resource officer at Auburn High School, admitted Thursday in Cayuga County Court to grabbing a high school student's hand and placing it on his penis for his own sexual gratification in February 2022. He also admitted to subjecting the student to sexual acts and having sexually explicit video conversations with them.

Morrissey pleaded guilty before Judge Thomas Leone to the class D felonies of first-degree sexual abuse and disseminating indecent material to a minor, and the misdemeanors of endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct.

The defendant will be sentenced Dec. 21 to two years in state prison followed by 10 years of post-release supervision for the sexual abuse count, which is the minimum prison sentence for that offense. He is also set to be sentenced to one to three years in state prison for the disseminating indecent material charge, in addition to 364 days in the Cayuga County Jail for the misconduct and endangering offenses. He will be out on bail until the sentencing.

All of the sentences will run concurrently. The Cayuga County District Attorney's Office recommended four years of state prison followed by 10 years of post-release supervision for the sexual abuse charge. A misdemeanor charge of second-degree criminal contempt was added in March 2023, but will be satisfied by Morrissey's pleas. 

Morrissey was arrested by the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office in March 2022 after an investigation began at the request of the Auburn Police Department. The department fired Morrissey in March 2022 after an internal investigation found "overwhelming evidence" he pursued a relationship with the student. Hired by the department in March 2016, he became a school resource officer in Auburn by 2018. The department immediately suspended and removed Morrissey from school grounds when the allegations were made. He was previously scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 2.