Son of NY federal judge pleads guilty to filming women in sex acts

A Manhattan man accused of secretly filming his sexual encounters with numerous women pleaded guilty to felony charges on Tuesday — but he still may be able to avoid jail time.

Daniel McAvoy, the 51-year-old son of a federal judge whose home was raided as part of the case, admitted to seven counts of unlawful surveillance in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, according to District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. Justice Ellen Biben allowed McAvoy to enter an “open plea,” meaning she will wait to deliver a final sentence until he’s completed a year of a court-prescribed treatment program.

That will give McAvoy the chance to potentially avoid going to jail over the objection of Assistant District Attorney Danielle Turcotte, who said in court Tuesday that the DA’s office doesn’t believe McAvoy “should be given the opportunity to earn a non-jail disposition.”

“Based on the length of time of the defendant’s conduct, the nature of the conduct, the selfish motives for his criminality, and the expressed wishes of his victims, the people recommended a jail sentence throughout this case,” Turcotte said, according to a statement she read into the court record that was provided by the DA’s office

McAvoy’s attorneys Isabelle Kirshner and Wayne Gosnell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

McAvoy was first indicted in September 2022 on 29 counts of unlawful surveillance. He was accused of surreptitiously recording four women disrobing or engaging in sexual acts with him on several occasions in multiple apartments he rented on the Upper East Side. While the sexual encounters were consensual, prosecutors said the women didn’t know they were being filmed.

By that point, investigators — acting on a tip from McAvoy’s then-girlfriend — had seized three hard drives and more than 150 DVDs that McAvoy kept at the home of his father, Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy, outside Binghamton, according to court records. The DVDs had hand-written labels that included dozens of women’s names and specific sex acts in pornographic terms.

McAvoy ultimately pleaded guilty to seven counts and not guilty to the rest.

Spencer Kuvin, an attorney for one of the women in the indictment against McAvoy, said his client is “happy that there was a plea of guilty and that he's accepting some responsibility for what he did.”

“But then in the same vein, she's concerned that obviously he might try to get off on just probation,” said Kuvin, who is leading a separate civil case against McAvoy. “And she still firmly believes that he deserves time behind bars for what he did.”

For months, the DA’s office and McAvoy’s attorneys wrangled over whether McAvoy should be accepted into Manhattan’s Felony Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) Court, a program that allows certain defendants to avoid jail time if they commit to a treatment program and aren’t a risk to the public.

Generally, a case is moved to ATI court, which Biben oversees, with the prosecutors’ consent. And in McAvoy’s case, the DA’s office opposed the move. But McAvoy’s attorneys were able to convince Biben to consider the case in ATI court because his alleged crimes didn’t carry a mandatory jail sentence.

McAvoy’s attorneys have a client list that has included a number of powerful men involved in sex-crime cases or investigations over the years, including former state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and former Columbia University obstetrician Robert Hadden.

State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and criminal-justice reform groups have hailed the Manhattan ATI court as a model to match people convicted of a felony with the treatment services they need.

It’s similar to drug court and mental health court, which connect people with substance abuse issues and mental health diagnoses to counseling and other programs meant to get at the root problems that lead to crime. But the ATI court is open to all charges — including sex crimes — after a candidate has gone through a screening process.

“By focusing on the whole person and addressing mental health, substance abuse, employment, housing, social supports and more, the ATI court seeks to reduce recidivism and build safer and healthier communities,” Wilson said in his State of the Judiciary address earlier this year.

While McAvoy was ultimately charged with filming four women, Turcotte said in court that he filmed dozens more — but the statute of limitations had run out in the other cases where investigators were able to identify the women in the video.

One of the women McAvoy filmed told Gothamist she opposes the plea because it will allow him to walk free. She said Biben is “making a big mistake.”

“Leaving Daniel McAvoy in the free community means exposing other women to experience the same violation he did to all of us,” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The “open plea” fails “the victims that had the courage to speak out, those that still today have no idea they were filmed without consent, and sadly, those other women who will probably suffer the same fate,” she said.

In court on Tuesday, Turcotte said McAvoy doesn’t fit the bill for someone who should be able to avoid a jail term by completing treatment.

“He is an over-50-year old man who purportedly has a master’s degree and is self-employed with adequate resources,” Turcotte said, according to the court record. “He made this decision to violate the trust of his sexual partners countless times over the last fifteen years. [He] made this decision over and over and over again for purely selfish motives and without any regard for the women.”