By SARAH LARSON
phillyBurbs.com
A relationship between a man and a 15-year-old Warminster girl that began on MySpace.com, police said, ended with a cocaine-spiked sexual encounter in a Doylestown Township home.
Now, the 24-year-old man involved is under arrest, charged with drug possession and statutory rape and related charges.
Christopher Leasher of Aster Road, Warminster, was arrested Tuesday and arraigned in District Judge Philip J. Daly’s court in Warrington. His parents posted $20,000 bond to keep him out of jail while awaiting trial on charges that prosecutors said stemmed from his Internet solicitation of the girl.
District Attorney Diane Gibbons said the case should galvanize every parent into actively monitoring and guiding their children on the Web.
“Parents always say to me, “I don’t want to invade my child’s privacy,’ †Gibbons said Tuesday during a press conference. But by allowing kids and teens unsupervised access to the online world, parents are tacitly authorizing contact far beyond the keyboard.
“You are giving that child permission to go to places you would never physically allow them to go,†Gibbons said.
Middletown attorney Richard Fink is Leasher’s attorney of record, though another lawyer accompanied Leasher to court. Fink could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Gibbons said a hearing date has not yet been set.
While out on bail, Leasher cannot use the Internet, officials said, citing a condition set by Daly.
The case began more than two months ago when the girl contacted a police officer.
On June 18, the girl told Doylestown police that she had interacted online for at least a month with a man known on MySpace as “Christopher Jive.†On the social networking Web site, the man said he was 23 years old (he has since turned 24) and a musician, a claim Gibbons skewered as delusions of grandeur.
“He doesn’t work, he lives off the incomes of others and happens to play an instrument,†the DA said.
Police said the girl told them that “Chris†had asked her repeatedly to meet in person to have sex; he gave her his cell phone number.
On June 11, the girl met him in the parking lot of the Warminster Kmart, according to court papers. They drove in his black Scion coupe down to Philadelphia, so he could buy cocaine, the papers allege.
They then drove to the home of Leasher’s friend Chris Gunderson, 45, on Cottonwood Court in Doylestown Township, arriving about 9 p.m., police said.
At the house, police say Leasher gave the girl cocaine and “blue pills†they think were the attention-deficit disorder drug Adderall. The girl took both drugs willingly, police said.
Police said the girl told them Leasher had sex with her throughout the night, even though she, at one point, became so feverish from the drugs that he had to put her in a bathtub of water to cool her down.
The girl passed out about 7 a.m. and slept until 4 p.m., at which point the man drove her back to Warminster and dropped her off near her father’s apartment, court records say. The girl told police she felt the effects of the drugs for another two days, according to the records.
After hearing the girl’s story, Doylestown police referred the case to Bucks County detectives. Detective Timothy Carroll was able to trace the cell phone number the girl provided to Leasher in Warminster. During the investigation, Leasher moved out of his parents’ house and into an apartment in Montgomery County with a girlfriend.
Leasher admitted to meeting the girl on MySpace, calling her a “teenybopper†and one of his “young fans,†according to court papers. He also admitted to buying the cocaine, though he denies giving it to the girl, the papers allege.
He also admitted to sexual contact with her, according to records. Police said the girl said she was a willing participant in the night’s activities. But Gibbons said that isn’t so.
“The decision she made was made while she was high on cocaine,†Gibbons said. “The law protects children because children do dumb things.â€
Gunderson, who police said was upstairs in his bedroom when the alleged assault took place, does not face any charges, Gibbons said, noting that failing to report a crime is not, in itself, a crime in Pennsylvania. Calls to Gunderson’s house Tuesday seemed to go to a fax machine line.
On Tuesday afternoon, Leasher’s MySpace page was populated with come-ons from girls in provocative poses.
Kathy Bennett, of the advocacy group Network of Victim Assistance, said many teenage girls welcome attention from an older, “cool†guy, not fully understanding where it could lead.
“For them, it’s just an older guy who is paying attention to them, and it’s flattering,†Bennett said. “They don’t realize the criminal nature of it all.â€
The best way to prevent situations like this is for parents to begin talking to their children about Internet safety when kids first begin to log on, said Mary Worthington, who coordinates NOVA’s education programs for elementary schools on such topics as Internet safety and cyber-bullying.
Kids who start using the Internet when they’re 3, 4 or 5 years old reach adolescence thinking of the Web as a safe place where everyone is a friend, Worthington said.
“We’re grooming our children to be tech savvy, which is a wonderful thing,†Worthington said. “But it’s just like driving a car. There are rules and there are safety guidelines that have to be followed.â€
This is the third case this week in Bucks County involving older men allegedly having sexual affairs with teenage girls.
At the same time Gibbons and First Assistant District Attorney Dave Zellis discussed charges against Leasher, testimony continued in a courtroom below in the trial of Ward Motz. The 39-year-old US Airways pilot, who now lives in Berks County, is accused of having a sexual relationship in 2000 and 2001, when he lived in Pipersville, with a girl who was 14 at the time.
The woman, who is now 22, said the relationship and the sex was consensual.
Motz, who retired this year from the 111th Fighter Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, denies the charges, and his attorney, Sara Webster, said she will prove that Motz was away on some of the dates of the alleged assaults.
Also on Tuesday, Jose Angel Nunez, 38, of Quakertown pleaded guilty before county Judge Albert Ceparullo to sexual assault, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and indecent exposure involving a 14-year-old girl.