Man Sexually Assaulted Teen Girl At Montco Park, Receives Prison Term

NORRISTOWN, PA ? A Montgomery County judge has sentenced a Bucks County man to 5 to 15 years behind bars after the defendant admitted that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl at a western Montgomery County park in the spring of 2021.

Court records show that Jonathan Faucette, 56, of Perkasie, Pa., received the prison sentence following a guilty plea before Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman last week.

Faucette pleaded guilty on July 25 to felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of a person less than 16 years of age and unlawful contact with minors.

In addition to the 5 to 10-year prison sentence, Ferman also gave Faucette three years' probation, the criminal docket sheet in the case shows.

Records show that other felony and misdemeanor charges were dropped in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Faucette was charged by prosecutors last summer after New Hanover Township Police received a ChildLine tip by a mandated reporter that a 15-year-old girl had a sexual encounter with an older, married man at a local community park.

The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office had said that Faucette met the girl online through the Omegle chat and video platform.

Prosecutors said that Faucette met up with the teenager on May 7, 2021, at a local New Hanover Township community park, where he laid out a blue blanket in an adjacent wooded area and proceeded to sexually assault the girl through intercourse and other sex acts.

Patch reported on the arrest in July 2021.

Related: Man Sexually Assaulted Teen At Montco Park: DA

At the time of Faucette's arrest, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele warned about the online world being a "serious threat to young girls and boys since its anonymity makes it attractive to sexual predators."

In a statement at the time, Steele said that Omegle had come under fire for not verifying the ages of its users and not monitoring communications on its platform as it matches users with random strangers to have one-on-one chats.

"Parents need to make sure they talk to their kids about the dangers in using this kind of a platform, how people can lie about who they are and above all, the danger of meeting someone in real life who they have only talked to online," Steele said at the time. "Stranger danger is real online."

During sentencing last week, Ferman, in addition to handing out a prison term, also ordered Faucette to comply with Megan's Law registration requirements for sex offenders.

The judge also ordered Faucette to have no contact with the victim, no unsupervised contact with other minors, refrain from using social media, and undergo a court-ordered psycho-sexual evaluation and comply with any and all recommendations, according to court records.

According to a report in the Mercury newspaper, which cited a police criminal complaint, Faucette allegedly told the young girl that he had previously had sex with another teenager, and that enjoyed meeting up with young people for sex even though he was a married adult.

The news report also states that police believe Faucette had met up with other young girls for sex across state lines, with reported encounters said to have taken place in locations in Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey.