Twist in case of child rapist who tormented seven-year-old girl in dance studio bathroom
A notorious child rapist who punched and bound his victim as he tormented her for 40 minutes in a Sydney dance studio bathroom won't be sentenced until next year after it was revealed he has cancer.
Anthony Sampieri, 55, was due to be sentenced in the Downing Centre District Court on Monday for attacking a seven-year-old girl in November 2018 while he was on parole.
However, Acting Judge Paul Conlon told a packed courtroom Sampieri was in Prince of Wales Hospital undergoing chemotherapy.
He was due to see a psychiatrist on Thursday last week but missed the appointment because he was rushed to hospital after cancer was discovered in his liver.
He will return to court on January 23 when he is expected to give evidence before being sentenced in February.
Sampieri had also admitted making almost 100 offensive phone calls to women across Sydney in the months before raping the girl, breaching his parole.
Sampieri admitted the rape, seven other offences during the attack and dozens of charges related to the phone calls.
Documents before the court state that after pushing the girl into a cubicle and locking the door, he punched the seven-year-old when she refused to touch his genitals.
After raping her once, Sampieri threatened her with a knife, tied a cord around her neck and dragged her to the male toilets.
"She felt like she could not breathe," agreed facts state.
Maintaining a grip of the cord, he then subjected her to further sexual acts before stuffing toilet paper into her mouth, binding her hands and leaving the bathroom.
During the attack, adults searching for the girl walked into the bathroom, prompting Sampieri to threaten to cut the girl's neck if she made a noise.
The knife-wielding Sampieri returned to the bathroom as diesel mechanic Nicola "Nick" Gilio found the girl, leading the two men to fight in the bathroom.
Though suffering several large cuts, Mr Gilio put the rapist in a headlock before dentist Jeffrey Stack ran in and knocked out Sampieri.
Mr Gilio told the District Court in November he still had flashbacks of the attack and had become pessimistic about the world due to Sampieri's actions.
The rapist later told police he'd been "so high" before the attack as a result of using methamphetamine earlier that day.
Police later uncovered the calls he'd been making to women from August 2018.
A chaplain, a 71-year-old community choir treasurer, an 18-year-old ice creamery worker and 20 real estate agents were among the 91 victims of Sampieri's sexually explicit cold-calls.
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