CHERRY TWP — A quarter-million dollar bail is keeping a township man in the Butler County Prison on charges of harboring a 16-year-old runaway boy.

For now, Joseph A. Betz, 64, is charged with a felony count of interference with the custody of a child.

State police, however, acknowledge he could face even more serious charges as they try to unravel the extent of his relationship with the boy, who eventually turned up at a Florida hotel — with two other men.

“He has not been forthcoming with information,” Trooper Max DeLuca said Tuesday of Betz. Still, the defendant, the trooper noted, has denied any wrongdoing.

The investigation, which began in June, has already involved law enforcement officials in different counties and another state. High-tech surveillance techniques also have been utilized.

And a key witness to emerge in the case, it turns out, is a registered sexually violent predator.

But the already entangled investigation, authorities concede, could grow more complicated.

The case began in June when Charleroi police in Washington County started looking for the victim, who is now 17, after he ran away from his parent's home.

Police had reason to believe the boy was staying with Betz at his home on Findlay Road in Cherry Township.

It was not immediately known why they thought the teen was with the defendant. Repeated calls to Charleroi police this week were not returned.

State police in Butler were notified of the suspicion and a patrol trooper June 7 went to Betz's house, where they found the boy, according to court documents.

The teen was eventually turned over to Mercer County Children and Youth Services and then placed at the Keystone Charter School in West Salem Township, Mercer County.

But it didn't take him long to run away from the school, which provides educational programming for at-risk children.

This time, it was Greenville-West Salem police's job to look for the boy.

Patrolman Ralph Henry was canvassing the area near the charter school June 10 when he came upon a suspicious vehicle occupied by two men.

“It seemed like they were cruising the area,” Henry said Tuesday of the men, one being Betz.

The other, 34-year-old Charles O. Hemingway, had a day or two earlier moved in with Betz immediately after being paroled for having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl in Butler County.

For his conviction, Hemingway also was deemed a sexually violent predator, meaning he must regularly register with police.

Henry said Betz admitted he had driven there to pick up the boy, who had called him earlier asking for a ride. Police did not detain Betz or Hemingway.

“We had to let them go,” Henry said, “because we had nothing on them.”

Greenville-West Salem police subsequently entered the boy's name into the National Crime Information Center's missing persons' database.

In October, meanwhile, state police learned that Hemingway had not reported his whereabouts as required of sex offenders like him.

He was arrested Dec. 1. While being interviewed at the barracks, he began giving up information about Betz and the boy, DeLuca said.

Hemingway claimed Betz told him in July that he was “sick of the government and the police trying to keep him away from (the boy),” according to DeLuca's affidavit filed with Betz's criminal complaint.

"Betz told Hemingway,” DeLuca said, “that when (the boy) turned 18 he was going to hire an attorney so he and (the boy) can be together.”

DeLuca said he does not know if Betz and the child had a sexual relationship, but he has his suspicions.

He said he has not spoken to the boy, and Betz has denied any such relationship.

But during the interview, Hemingway provided a clue about the still missing boy's whereabouts.

At the end of November, Betz traveled with one or two co-workers to Florida with the teen.

While there, according to Hemingway's account, Betz got into an argument with one of the other men and returned home.

DeLuca reviewed his findings with a Butler County assistant district attorney and got approval to charge Betz with child custodial interference. District Judge Lewis Stoughton on Dec. 2 signed an arrest warrant.

Police wasted little time arresting the suspect in a traffic takedown in Lawrence County.

Betz admitted to DeLuca that he had traveled to Florida with a co-worker and another man he knew only as “Jerry.” But he was vague about where they stayed.

He said he returned home after getting into an “altercation” with Jerry, who he claimed was giving the boy alcohol.

“Betz stated Jerry and (the boy) have been sleeping in the same bed with each other while in Florida,” documents said.

The defendant provided police with Jerry's cell phone number. Stoughton on Dec. 2 issued DeLuca search warrants for that phone and Betz's cell phone.

One of the warrants also authorized police to conduct an emergency ping of Jerry's cell phone, which helped to narrow down his — and presumably the boy's — whereabouts.

That ping came back to a location in Osceola County. Investigators notified law enforcement officials in Florida, who found the boy and two men at a hotel.

”The boy was OK, health wise,” DeLuca said.

Osceola County Sheriff's deputies briefly spoke to the boy, who denied he had been abused by the men. Both men were released and not charged.

But DeLuca said he is anxious to interview the teenager at length. He did not know when that would happen.

A preliminary hearing for Betz is set for Tuesday at Stoughton's office in Chicora. Online court records did not indicate if he has an attorney.