Chester County man acquitted on charges of molesting daughter

By: Daily Local News / MediaNews Group Staff Writer Michael P. Rellahan

WEST CHESTER — A Common Pleas Court jury has acquitted a southern Chester County man who had been accused of molesting his young daughter during tickling sessions the girl referred to as “silly business.”

The girl, however, testified last week that she had been mistaken about what had happened and that her father had not assaulted her. She said that rather than touch her genitals, he had simply tickled her inner thighs.

The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for nine hours before returning with their unanimous verdict on Wednesday, about 10:30 p.m. They had listened to five days of testimony in Judge Thomas P. “Tip” McCabe’s courtroom, including from the girl, now 7 years old, her father, and a number of investigators.

Defense attorney Dan Bush, of the West Chester law firm of Lamb McErlane, praised the panel for their decision.

“I’m ecstatic that this family gets back together again. They were wrongfully ripped apart by charges that weren’t ever properly investigated and never should have been brought. Thank you to this amazing jury for the time and effort they put in. The system worked today.”

Bush maintained that his client should never have been charged and that the family had been ripped apart by overzealous investigators.

“This whole thing stinks,” Bush told the jury during his closing argument on Wednesday. “He knows he didn’t do it, and that there is nothing to show that it happened.

“But this is what he has done: stand up for himself,” Bush said. “They got it wrong. This case screams reasonable doubt.”

MediaNews Group is withholding the name of the defendant to protect the identity of his daughter. It does not publish the names of alleged victims in sexual assault cases unless granted permission by the person to do so.

In her summation, First Assistant District Attorney Erin O’Brien, who heads the DA’s Office’s Child Abuse Unit, urged the jury to look at the entire realm of evidence the prosecution had put on and take it in context, rather than sift through singular parts of the case.

“When she said he touched her vulva, she meant he touched her vulva,” the prosecutor said. “I am asking you to use your common sense and life experience. There is no doubt about what she was talking about. And this is a child who has come to know the impact of her words.”

Responding to Bush’s criticism of the investigation — in which the girl gave the same story three times about being touched on her genitals by her father during tickling sessions in their home, only to retract it during the trial — District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe defended the case.

“The DA’s Office fights for children who have been sexually abused — even in the cases that aren’t easy,” he said in an e-mail Thursday.  “This case had inherent challenges and took some unexpected turns, but I could not be prouder of the attorneys and law enforcement officers who did everything they could to protect the child victim in this prosecution.

“I also want to take a moment to thank the jury for their hard work,” he added. “They had to hear difficult testimony and stayed well into the night deciding their verdict.  The time they took to discuss the case and the questions they asked demonstrate how thoughtful their deliberations must have been. Unfortunately, we did not get a conviction, but we respect their verdict.”

The man was charged with counts of aggravated indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault of a child, and endangering the welfare of a child.

He was arrested by state Trooper Brian McCabe of the Avondale barracks in February after staff at the Penn London Elementary School reported that a student there had disclosed to a counselor that she had been inappropriately touched by her father, both on top of and under her clothes, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

The school counselor said the girl, then 6, said her father had tickled her during “silly business” in her bed and on a living room couch. She said she did not like it when he tickled her too hard in her private area and that sometimes his nails would cut her.

In an interview with Chester County Detective Gerald Davis of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit, the girl again said that she had been touched inappropriately outside and inside her private area. The jury watched a video recording of the interview.

She also testified to the same behavior during a preliminary hearing in 2024.

The trial was unusual because it was held in the Chester County Historic Courthouse, in stately Courtroom One, instead of the county Justice Center. McCabe had been relocated to the courtroom after the Justice Center’s air conditioning system malfunctioned. Even after the building cooled after the air conditioning was repaired, McCabe decided to remain in the Historic Courthouse for continuity’s sake.

The case also hit a bump when, in August 2024, McCabe dismissed all the charges against the man, ruling that his touching of the girl’s private area could have been inadvertent. His ruling was contested by the DA’s Office, in which O’Brien and de Barrena-Sarobe said that he misread the charge of aggravated indecent assault. He eventually reversed himself and reinstated the charges.

Read the story online in the Daily Local News here.