Man charged with child sex abuse 20 years ago
WINFIELD TWP — A Lyndora man has been arrested on charges he repeatedly sexually assaulted a township boy more than 20 years ago when the alleged victim was 6 years old.
The defendant, Adam R. Kelley, 33, was 12 years old when the suspected assaults started at a home in Winfield Township, state police said.
District Judge Sue Haggerty arraigned Kelley on Wednesday on two counts each of rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years of age and statutory sexual assault, all felonies and two misdemeanors.
Kelley is in the Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail.
Police criminal investigators filed the charges after interviewing the victim in January. It was not immediately known what prompted the accuser, who is now 27, to come forward.
“He was just ready to speak about it,” Trooper Max DeLuca, the investigating officer, said this morning.
The victim, who lives out of county, told police that Kelley abused him between 1995 and 2000. At that time the accuser was 6 to 11 years old and the defendant was 12 to 17 years old.
Throughout the years of abuse, the suspect allegedly warned the victim not to tell anyone because he would be in “trouble,” documents said.
Under state law, victims under the age of 18 who were born before Aug. 27, 2002, have 12 years after their 18th birthday to seek criminal charges. Victims under the age of 18 born after Aug. 27, 2002, have 32 years after their 18th birthday to pursue an alleged perpetrator.
County court records show that Kelley pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault in 2002 and was sentenced to 3 to 6 months in county prison.
