IN RE: O. P. (2025)

Order, Family Court, New York County (Genna D. Teitelbaum, Ref.), entered on or about March 28, 2024, which, after a fact-finding hearing, found that respondent father committed the family offense of sexual abuse in the second degree against the subject child and granted a two-year order of protection in favor of petitioner mother and the subject child, subject to court orders of custody and visitation, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

A preponderance of the evidence presented at the hearing established that the father engaged in acts constituting the family offense of sexual abuse in the second degree (see Penal Law § 130.60[2]).  We find no basis to disturb Family Court's determination that the mother's testimony was credible and that the father's denial of sexualized touching was incredible and self-serving, as the court's credibility determinations are entitled to great deference and are supported by the record evidence, including photographs (see Matter of Judith L.C. v. Lawrence Y., 179 A.D.3d 616, 616, 118 N.Y.S.3d 573 [1st Dept. 2020], lv denied 35 N.Y.3d 911, 2020 WL 5047416 [2020];  Matter of Marilyn C. v. Olsen C., 132 A.D.3d 406, 406, 16 N.Y.S.3d 735 [1st Dept. 2015]).  Furthermore, the father's intent to gain sexual gratification from touching and fondling the child's intimate parts, including the child's buttocks and genitals, was properly inferred from not only the acts themselves, but also the surrounding circumstances (see Matter of A.G., 253 A.D.2d 318, 326, 686 N.Y.S.2d 396 [1st Dept. 1999]), including, as Family Court noted, the father's increasingly sexualized acts and comments to the child.

We have considered the father's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.