Police: Man sent explicit video to girl
BRADY TWP — A 41-year-old Lawrence County man is accused of sending a sexually explicit video by way of social media to a Butler County teenage girl.
State police have an arrest warrant for Michael P. Mason, 41, of New Castle.
Mason is charged with corruption of minors and criminal use of a communication facility, both felonies. He also is charged with indecent exposure, unlawful contact with a minor and open lewdness, all misdemeanors.
Troopers on May 2 obtained the arrest warrant for the defendant, who has been in the Lawrence County Jail since April 26 in connection with an alleged kidnapping and police chase.
The Butler County charges followed a nearly four-month investigation.
The victim, a 16-year-old Brady Township girl, initially showed up at the police barracks Jan. 21, the same day the defendant sent via Facebook Messenger a nude video of himself, according to court documents.
When the girl did not respond to the video, the defendant asked her if she was there. She told him she was upset.
Mason, in turn, allegedly told the girl he had “sent her the wrong video,” documents said. But the teen advised him that she was going to tell her father.
The defendant is already awaiting formal arraignment in Lawrence County Court in two separate felony cases.
In those, he is accused of grabbing his ex-girlfriend April 25 in New Castle and forcing her into his vehicle. The woman told New Castle police that Mason threatened her with a gun during the hours-long ordeal.
He eventually took the victim, who at the time was nine months pregnant, to Jameson Hospital in New Castle, according to court documents. He dropped her off and drove away.
Police issued a bulletin for Mason's car that night and on April 26 spotted his car on New Castle's south side. He was arrested, but not before leading several departments on a chase through five communities in Lawrence County.
He is charged with kidnapping, terroristic threats and possessing a firearm without a concealed carry license in the first incident.
He is charged with fleeing or attempting to elude police, flight to avoid apprehension and reckless endangerment stemming from the chase.
Mason is being held in the Lawrence County Jail on $125,000 bail.
