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Two Long Island women, one a grandmother, faced arraignment Tuesday in Suffolk County First District Court on child sex trafficking charges.
Jacquelyn Comiskey, 52, and Elizabeth Hunter, 34, both pleaded not guilty to charges of child sex trafficking and endangering the welfare of a child, according to court records. Cash bail was set at $750,000 for both Comiskey and Hunter, with a bond option of $1.5 million. Hunter additionally pleaded not guilty to a charge of promoting an obscene sex performance by a child under 17.
Arrested on Monday, the women became the sixth and seventh defendants arrested — on charges ranging from rape to kidnapping — in the 25-day disappearance of a 14-year-old Patchogue girl, Newsday reported. At least three other individuals — two currently awaiting trial in a 2023 felony case and one who has already served jail time in a separate criminal case — have also been implicated in prior instances where the same girl was a victim.
Update: Grandma accused in Patchogue teen’s trafficking was a fugitive last summer
The teen went missing on Dec. 9 when she exited her home about 5 p.m. and entered a car that had pulled up in front of her house. The court-ordered Person in Need of Supervision (PINS) ankle bracelet she had been wearing was cut off and found a block away.
Following a highly publicized search — which included daily video updates that her father posted on Instagram — the teen was found on a 56-foot boat docked in Whitecap Marina on Jan. 3.
The boat’s owner, Francis Buckheit, 64, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape, when he allegedly drove up drunk to the dock the next day. He has pleaded not guilty to his charges and is being held without bail.
Subsequently, 47-year-old Bunice Knight was charged with raping the teen at his Copiague home on Jan. 2. Knight pleaded not guilty and was released on $100,000 bond.
Later, Alton Harrell, was arrested for allegedly raping the youth in an abandoned Bellport house. This past weekend, Daniel Burke, 63, of Bohemia, and Robert Eccleston, 61, of Islip, were arrested and charged with rape and kidnapping. Each of the defendants pleaded not guilty.
Comiskey, who says on her Instagram account that “my kids and grand babies are my world,” was arrested Monday, court records show, for a crime involving the young female victim that happened on Jan. 2. Newsday reported that prosecutors alleged she brought the girl to Knight’s house in Copiague and traded the girl for crack cocaine.
Comiskey’s father Joseph was a police officer who died earlier this month, according to the woman’s Facebook page and obituary information posted by Robertaccio Funeral Home in Patchogue.
Hunter’s arrest is related to a Dec. 13 incident involving the teen.
Hunter previously served time in jail after pleading guilty to third-degree burglary and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, crack, in a November 2023 arrest. She has an ongoing petit larceny case, relating to an incident last August.
Editor’s note: Because the victim is a child and the victim of a sex crime, Greater Long Island is identifying her as a 14-year-old girl from Patchogue.
Top photos: Jacqueline Comiskey (inset, Facebook) and Suffolk County District Court in Central Islip (GLI file photo).