At defense lawyer Wayne Thatcher’s criminal sentencing for forcibly touching his client, a woman who was sitting in jail when she reportedly came forward to accuse Thatcher of assaulting her, a prosecutor decided to put on the record a statement about the woman’s bravery.

Thatcher’s wrongdoing “only came to light because the victim … who was in jail at the time, decided that she couldn’t take it anymore and came forward to investigators to disclose what [Thatcher] had been doing to her for quite some time,” the Dutchess County assistant district attorney said, according to a long quotation of the remarks included in a recent Appellate Division, Second Department decision in which the panel handed down a two-year law practice suspension against Thatcher.