Wallkill man accused of raping 14-year-old in Montgomery

Town of Montgomery police arrested Wallkill resident Ryan Geoffrey Hablow, 20, on June 16 and charged him with second-degree rape after investigators said an adult man engaged in a sexual act with a 14-year-old girl in Montgomery. Hablow was held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of cash bail as the Town of Montgomery Police Department worked with the Orange County Child Abuse Unit on the case.

Police withheld many details because of the victim’s age and the ongoing investigation, leaving the criminal complaint as the main public record in a case that already reaches across municipal and county lines. The accusation adds another child-safety matter to Orange County’s recent crime coverage and puts the focus on how quickly local police and county investigators can move when a report involves a child.

Orange County’s child-protection network spans a large and densely populated jurisdiction. The county covers 839 square miles, includes 3 cities, 20 towns and 19 villages, and is home to more than 379,000 residents, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. That scale is one reason child-abuse investigations often require cooperation between town police, county investigators and prosecutors.

Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler has recently publicized other child rape sentences and thanked the county child abuse investigation unit in at least one case, underscoring the seriousness with which prosecutors have treated similar allegations. The sheriff’s office also says it maintains a victim hotline and a missing persons clearinghouse, two resources that matter to families trying to reach law enforcement quickly when a child may be in danger.

Montgomery has seen related cases before. In 2018, an Orange County case from Montgomery ended in convictions for rape in the third degree, criminal sexual act in the third degree and endangering the welfare of a child. In 2013, another Montgomery case involved a man charged with second-degree rape after allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl. Those cases, along with Hablow’s arrest, show how child-sex abuse allegations have periodically surfaced in this part of the Hudson Valley and how county investigators remain central to the response.