WEST CHESTER — The Chester County man who authorities said sexually and physically abused the children of his former girlfriend in their home for years and who also assaulted the woman when he accused her of cheating on him has been found guilty of those crimes.
On Tuesday, the panel of eight men and four women deliberated about 2½ hours before returning to Common Pleas Court Judge Alita Rovito’s courtroom around 8 p.m. with its verdict, finding the man guilty on 29 separate counts involving four victims.
The man — whose name is being withheld by the MediaNews Group to protect the identity of his child victims — was charged with, among other crimes, rape of a child, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and simple and aggravated assault.
He was returned to Chester County Prison following the verdict to await sentencing. According to the prosecution, he faces decades behind bars for those charges that carry with them mandatory sentences.
The jury listened to four days of testimony, including each of the child victims and the former girlfriend. The panel also heard from the defendant himself, who testified over two days and who denied all of the accusations against him.
He contended that the children were unfairly blaming him for assaults that were perpetrated by other people who came into their home in East Fallowfield and that the injuries his girlfriend suffered came not from his blows to her body but from a car crash she was involved in.
But his accounts of people coming into the home and assaulting the children were undercut by the testimony of the lead investigator in the case, Chester County Detective Gerald Davis Jr. of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit. He said that after interviewing their children about what happened to them initially, he found their explanations curious. So he posted a video camera outside the house and found that there were no “outsiders” coming in the home on Strasburg Road at all.
The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorneys Zack Yurick and Madeline Troutman contended that that the physical abuse that the defendant subjected both boys and girls in the household was a way of controlling what they might say about the sexual abuse he was subjecting some of them to. He forced them to make up lies about what was going on by threatening them with harm if they did not follow his instructions
The man’s attorney, Paul DeMaio of Philadelphia, in his opening, urged the panel members not to allow their emotions to get the better of them in listening to testimony. There will be more than just one version of events they will hear. “It’s a confusing story,” he said. “There are several players in this story, and there are several stories within the story.”
The defendant, 45, formerly of East Fallowfield, was first charged in January 2020 with an assault on his then-girlfriend, whose name is also being withheld. It was that assault that eventually led to the children coming forward and speaking with an investigator about the alleged abuse.
The woman told Chester County Detective Joseph Walton that on Jan. 17, 2020, the man had struck her in the face with a closed fist, breaking her orbital bone, during a domestic disturbance at the home they shared on Strasburg Road. She had to seek treatment at Chester County Hospital.
Then on Jan. 21, 2020, the woman told Davis that she had sustained multiple injuries at his hands in another alleged beating that lasted several hours. That assault allegedly occurred in November 2019.
She said he hit her with a bat on the leg, over the head with a frying pan, and used a knife to cut off chunks of her hair. She had several broken ribs and bruises on her face from being repeatedly punched by the man. She had to go to Paoli Hospital for treatment.
When he was arrested and jailed on those charges, the prosecution contends, the children finally felt safe enough to detail what had happened to them.
On Feb. 24, 2020, Davis, who is a certified forensic interviewer of child victims, spoke with a 13-year-old girl who is the daughter of the man’s former girlfriend. She said that the man had been physically and sexually abusing her since she was 11 years old and when the family lived in Coatesville.
She was made to perform oral sex on the man and told Davis that he had had sexual intercourse with her many times between the ages of 11 and 13. The alleged abuse ended in January 2020, after his arrest on the assault charges.
The girl told Davis that she was fearful of the man because he would beat and threaten her and her siblings and her mother “regularly.” At one point, she said, the man zip-tied her and her siblings and put arrows to the back of their heads, telling them he would kill them, according to Davis’s arrest affidavit.
He would also choke her until she blacked out.
The same day, Davis also interviewed the girl’s younger brother, who was 11 years old at the time. The boy confirmed that he had been beaten and threatened by the man when they lived in the same home and that he had been choked with a pipe. He had also threatened him with a crossbow and arrows.
In March 2020, a second girl told investigators from the Chester County Department of Children Youth and Families that she had been sexually abused by the man in the summer of 2019 at the home in East Fallowfield. She said the man, whom she referred to as her stepfather, pinned her to a couch and forced her to have intercourse with him.
Then in June 2020, a fourth alleged victim, a 9-year-old male, told Davis that the man had locked him in a closet overnight after punching and choking him.
In February 2023, the boy told investigators in Northumberland County that the man had also sexually abused him, forcing him to perform oral sex on him and anally raping him. He said the man had accused him of sexually assaulting the man’s son, and that he was punished for that if he did not tell “the truth.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.