23 charged in East Patchogue girl trafficking, kidnapping case
A 14-year-old East Patchogue girl vanished for 25 days before her father found her on an Islip yacht, and 23 people now face trafficking-related charges.
Twenty-three people have now been charged in the East Patchogue girl’s disappearance, a case prosecutors say moved a 14-year-old through an alleged trafficking network that ended with her discovery on a yacht in Islip. The charges include kidnapping, child sex trafficking, use of a child in a sexual performance and rape.
The timeline began to come into focus through surveillance and arrests spread across Suffolk County. Video showed the girl leaving her Long Island home on Dec. 9, 2024. She was found on Jan. 3, 2025, after her father, Frank Gervasi of Patchogue, received an anonymous tip and tracked her to a yacht docked at a marina in Islip. Authorities arrested Francis Buckheit, 65, of East Islip that night; prosecutors say he owned the yacht where the girl allegedly spent about three weeks before she was found.
The case widened over the following weeks. Alton Harrell, 36, of Bellport, was arrested Jan. 17, 2025. Daniel Burke, 64, of Bohemia, and Robert Eccleston, 61, of Islip, were arrested Jan. 24, 2025. By the time Suffolk County court in Riverhead took up the case on Feb. 13, 2025, nine people had been indicted and pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors said the defendants raped the girl multiple times and marketed her for sex.
Three additional defendants were later charged, including a staffer at a state mental health facility accused of groping the girl while she was receiving inpatient treatment.
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