A paroled sex fiend who killed a teenage girl in Rockland County was busted again this month for allegedly groping a woman — leading incensed lawmakers to blast the state board that freed him.
44-year-old Robert McCain was granted release from the state Parole Board on his 10th attempt in 2021 after serving four decades behind bars in the grisly 1980 stabbing of 16-year-old Paula Bohovesky.
He was arrested for allegedly fondling a woman as the two were chatting in an upper Westchester County dog park on July 5.
McCain was hit with a misdemeanor charge of forcible touching and was being held at the Westchester County jail on $25,000 bail, authorities said Friday.
The victim, a “casual acquaintance” of McCain, told cops he groped her at the park in Cortlandt — the town where the jailbird now resides, the Westchester County Department of Public Safety said.
State prison officials said a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision warrant was issued against McCain and lodged with the Westchester jail, where he will remain until a parole revocation hearing.
McCain and co-defendant Richard LaBarbera were convicted of murder in 1981 for Bohovesky’s slaying and each hit with the maximum prison term of 25 years to life.
The creeps spotted the teen as she was walking home from her part-time job in Pearl River and McCain chucked a piece of pavement at her head and then beat her.
The sick pair then dragged the girl behind an empty house and sexually assaulted her before LaBarbera stabbed her five times in the back.
Her brutalized body was found face down near a pool of blood the next morning and her jeans were around her ankles.
Continue readingAfter about 40 years in prison, McCain was granted parole 2021 despite calls from various elected officials and the victim’s elderly mother to keep him locked up. LaBarbera was released in 2020.
Sex fiend who murdered teen girl busted for groping woman in NY park while on parole, sparking outrage
A paroled sex fiend who killed a teenage girl in Rockland County was busted again this month for allegedly groping a woman — leading incensed lawmakers to blast the state board that freed him…
From his 2019 parole hearing
Before being denied parole, Robert McCain, one of the men who brutally killed Paula Bohovesky told a parole board he didn't kill the 16-year-old girl and was framed, according to a transcript of his June parole hearing.
McCain, who has been in prison for nearly 39 years, told two parole commissioners he was drunk and later coerced into confessing to repeatedly bashing the high school junior's head with pavement as she walked home from her job at the Pearl River Library.
When asked what happened to Bohovesky on Oct. 28, 1980, McCain said: "What I know is the truth is that I was not at the murder ... I did not murder.
"I was not there and I do not know who did. That is what I know is an absolute truth, that I am not the guy. As far as I know, the murderer is still out there."
At the time of the killing, McCain said he was an alcoholic and heroin addict, then a 20-year-old who had been drinking since 14 in his home state of Arkansas.
From
June 11, 2019
The state parole board members who approved Richard LaBarbera's release from a life sentence claimed he appeared to show sincere remorse for the killing of Pearl River teenager Paula Bohovesky in 1980.
LaBarbera, 66, who has been imprisoned for 38 years, had denied killing the teenager, especially since becoming eligible for parole in 2005. LaBarbera, a former Pearl River resident, blamed the murder on his convicted accomplice Robert McCain.
Bohovesky's 87-year-old mother, Lois, doesn't believe LaBarbera.
"The only expression of remorse I recall is LaBarbera saying he regrets just watching McCain without stepping in to help Paula," she said Monday. "But that requires you to believe his denial of responsibility, that he didn’t take part in the brutal attack."
Lois Bohovesky said thisShe said LaBarbera has told different accounts at the parole hearings.
"He doesn’t remember the story he’s made up and changes it from appearance to appearance," she said. "After all these years, after all the denials, any acceptance of responsibility or expression of remorse is empty and you would think a parole board would see them as self-serving."![]()
"In one sense they are serial killers," she said. "When they killed Paula, they killed her children, her grandchildren."
Paula Bohovesky's killer showed remorse for Pearl River teen's 1980 murder: Parole Board
A look at the Parole Board decision to free Richard LaBarbera, convicted of killing Paula Bohovesky of Pearl River.
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