Three men, two from Pennsylvania and one from Kentucky, have been charged with the commercial sex trafficking of a 13-year-old girl in Bucks County.
Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said that Zachary Lee McCauley of Louisville, Kentucky, trafficked the teen girl in Bucks County after he met her on Snapchat.
Court documents reveal how the 29-year-old groomed and enticed the girl on Snapchat pretending to be a 17-year-old lad called Jake.
“This case is a classic illustration of the extent to which the arm of a child sex predator extends on these social media platforms,” said Schorn. “I can assure you that at this point in time this investigation is still very active, and if there are other victims, we will make sure that this individual is prosecuted for those crimes.”
“He used grooming techniques to lower her inhibition, and then the techniques became threatening to harm her mother if she did not comply with what he wanted,” she went on.
Schorn added McCauley also taught the girl how to create a Grindr dating app profile, where 67-year-old Buckingham Township, Bucks County, resident Jon Van Ingen and 42-year-old Coopersburg, Lehigh County, resident Randy Quinn messaged her.
Police say the two Pennsylvania men contacted the girl on the dating app and repeatedly sexually assaulted her, including at the Mainstreet Inn in Doylestown. Police said one of the assaults was recorded on a Snapchat video call. “There was actually a third man who met with this child, and when he met with her in person, it was obvious immediately that she was a child and that he did not have the sexual encounter that he was going to have,” Schorn said.
Court documents show the mother took her daughter’s iPhone, iPad and MacBook to Buckingham Township Police in early October after she caught her daughter “recording inappropriate videos/images of herself in her bedroom.”
Then a few months later in February, the mother contacted the Bucks County District Attorney’s office after viewing a press conference on a child predator case.
“I praise the mother in this case because she listened to her instincts,” Schorn said.
Schorn urged parents to be in continuous conversation with their children regarding the risks of the internet and to monitor their devices.
“This is sadly a theme repeatedly that we find, and you know these forums, it permits these kinds of predators to do so with anonymity, and it is quite terrifying,” Schorn said
Schorn said the two defendants from the region posted bail and are out.
McCauley is currently in custody in Kentucky and is awaiting extradition, Schorn said.
