Updated

A New York man who died hours after a parole hearing admitted for the first time during that proceeding that he had "inappropriately touched" a 10-year-old New York girl  he had kidnapped.

For more than 20 years, John Esposito said he kidnapped Katie Beers in 1992 on Long Island. But he had always denied sexually abusing her while he kept her for more than two weeks in a dungeon in his Bay Shore home.

He said he had previously relied on legal advice to deny the accusations.

Esposito died of heart failure in prison last week. He was not told of the decision denying him parole before he died.

Beers, who wrote of the abuse in a book this year, has said she wants to move on with her life.