Berkley man charged for impregnating adopted daughter

Berkley man charged for impregnating adopted daughter

By Jeremy Selweski
C & G Staff Writer

PONTIAC — A 43-year-old Berkley man could face life in prison after being charged on Feb. 28 in Oakland County Circuit Court with eight felony counts of criminal sexual conduct against his adopted daughter.

Gerald Dale Snapp was first arrested after Berkley Public Safety discovered that he had fathered the 3-year-old child of his adopted daughter, now 22. Subsequent DNA testing indicated with 99.99 percent accuracy that Snapp is, in fact, the child’s father.

“Mr. Snapp should go to prison and serve for as long the judge sees fit,” said Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Giles. “Genetic testing shows with numerical certainty that he is the father, which is proof that he sexually abused (his adopted daughter).”

According to case documents, the woman said she initially had refrained from notifying the authorities because she did not want to see Snapp thrown in jail or break up his family. However, she later changed her mind about pressing charges.

Police initially learned of the situation when the woman’s child was interviewed at Care House in Pontiac, an agency that works to prevent child abuse and neglect, Giles said.

The woman first came to live with the Snapp family as a foster child, she said, when she was removed from her biological parents’ home after claiming that her father had raped her.

She asserted that after moving in with Snapp and his family in September 2000 at their house on Cummings Avenue in Berkley, Snapp sexually assaulted her on four different occasions beginning when she was 15. Then, in September 2003, after she had been legally adopted by the family, Snapp forced sexual intercourse on her, which resulted in her pregnancy.

All of the incidents, the woman said, occurred while other family members — including Snapp’s wife, their two biological daughters and their adopted son — were in the house, or sometimes even in the same room. On the night when Snapp allegedly had intercourse with her, she had been sleeping alone in her basement bedroom while the rest of the family was upstairs in bed.

Though the woman was 17 when she was impregnated, making her legally an adult, Giles said the fact that Snapp was her adoptive father and the allegation that he forced himself on her still constitutes criminal sexual conduct.

The woman further stated that she attempted to tell her adoptive mother on several occasions that Snapp was the father of her child, but that her adoptive mother accused her of lying and threatened to throw her out of the house.

After the first sexual assault occurred in December 2000, she said that a friend informed police about the incident, but when an officer came to the house, the adopted daughter denied that any misconduct had taken place. Instead, she told the officer that her younger sisters were the ones being abused.

Defense attorney Jerome Sabbota said that these accusations are false and believes that because the woman waited so long before notifying the police, her credibility is in question.

“She told the story that this happened over a number of years,” he said. “She had many opportunities to disclose her story to other people, but failed to do so.”

However, Giles argued that the defense’s position “doesn’t hold any water — it’s just the only argument they could come up with against her.”

In addition to the charges against Snapp, he and his wife are both facing a child neglect petition, and their two daughters and adopted son have been removed from their home.

“(The wife) did nothing to protect the girl or the rest of her kids from a father who has shown a penchant for sexually assaulting children,” Giles said.

The maximum sentence Snapp could face is life in prison; however, Giles said that the defense may be entering an agreement with Judge Mark Goldsmith to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. “The judge has indicated that he will sentence Mr. Snapp to the bottom of the sentencing guidelines,” he said.

At the arraignment, Goldsmith set a pretrial date of March 20 at 1 p.m. and a trial date of April 1 at 8:30 a.m.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Selweski at jselweski@candgnews.com or at (586) 218-5004.