DAUPHIN CO., Pa. (EYT) — An Amish man was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in Dauphin County after admitting to the molestation of four girls.
According to PennLive, President Judge Richard A. Lewis sentenced 33-year-old Ephriam King, of Dauphin County’s Old Order Amish community, to 11 and a half to 23 months in prison.
King was ordered to serve his sentence in a county work-release center and will then be required to spend an additional five years on probation and perform 500 hours of community service.
According to Deputy District Attorney Katie Adam, King admitted to the molestation of the girls, who were seven and eight years old, when he was a teenager, in 2001. Adam reported that King would hold the girls on his lap and fondle their genitals.
Adam, county victim advocates, and the state police offered a sexual abuse awareness program to Amish bishops in the area, from Northumberland and Schuylkill counties to upper Dauphin County, in 2017, which resulted in numerous tips reported to the police.
According to Adam, King cooperated with authorities and admitted to his crimes.
Defense attorney Christopher Sarno made one special request of the judge: that King be allowed to continue to attend church, seeking an exception to sex offender regulations that would otherwise bar King from contact with children. Judge Lewis agreed to permit the exception.
A second request, that the beginning of King’s sentence be deferred so he could make arrangements to keep his current job while on work-release, raised an objection from Adam, who stated, “I’d like him to be incarcerated today.”
King was ordered to report to the work-release center on August 29.
According to Adam, King’s victims agreed to his plea deal and offered their forgiveness.
King’s case is the third case involving a member of his community over the last few years. In October 2017, 45-year-old Daniel Fisher was sentenced to one to two years in prison for molesting two girls in 2011, and just one month prior to that, 70-year-old Christ M. Stoltzfus was sentenced to three months of probation for not reporting Fisher’s crimes.
According to Adam, there are currently no further criminal charges pending against other members of Dauphin County’s Old Order Amish community.
