A 33-year-old man from the Moscow region has been sentenced to 18 years in a strict regime penal colony for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter and her 12-year-old friend over a two-year period.

The court found the man guilty of multiple counts of sexual assault against minors. The Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region stated that the crimes occurred between January 2022 and February 2024.

The investigation revealed that the man, who worked as a handyman, first assaulted the girls in his apartment when the 12-year-old friend was visiting. He initiated a conversation about sex before raping them.

He subsequently threatened the girls, forbidding them from revealing the abuse and warning them that he would prevent them from seeing each other. He then continued to coerce them into sexual acts, inviting them to meet him in his car and at his home when his wife was absent.

The abuse continued for two years until one of the victims confided in her father, who reported the incidents to the police. The man confessed to the rapes during interrogation.

He was convicted of crimes under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including violent acts of a sexual nature against a person under 14 years of age, rape of a victim under 14 years of age, violent acts of a sexual nature against a minor, rape of a minor, and coercion to acts of a sexual nature against a minor.