The Nation - News from Jan. 20, 1988

A teen-ager who arranged the killing of her abusive father was met by a white limousine as she was released from jail after 3 1/2 months, and she let out a whoop of joy before heading off to a diner for breakfast. “It was rough, but I made it,” 18-year-old Cheryl Pierson said after her brother, James, and boyfriend, Robert Cuccio Jr., met her outside the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead, N.Y. Pierson served 106 days of a six-month sentence for hiring a classmate to kill her father, who she said had sexually abused her for years. Cuccio is serving five years’ probation for criminal solicitation because he delivered a $400 payment from Pierson to Sean Pica, who shot James Pierson to death on Feb. 5, 1986. Pica pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is serving eight to 24 years in prison.