A trial has been scheduled for October for a West Sunbury man charged with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old runaway boy in 2011.

Joseph Andrew Betz II, 73, is facing numerous charges including felony statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person under 16, aggravated indecent assault of a person under 13, aggravated indecent assault of a person under 16, indecent assault of a person under 13, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with a minor and photographing a sex act with a child; and misdemeanor charges of indecent assault of a person under 16, indecent exposure and simple assault.

Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Maura Palumbi scheduled the jury trail for the October trial term. Attorneys said the trial is expected to last three days.

State police filed the charges in 2024 after speaking with the alleged victim in 2023 when he was 24 years old. He reported Betz sexually abused him over several years beginning in 2011 when he was 11 and Betz was 58, according to court documents.

The man told police Betz would perform various sexual acts on him on a weekly basis in several locations in a home in Cherry Township, according to an affidavit. He told police he recalled feeling he had “no choice” but to participate.

He told police Betz would do “weird things” to him while he slept at the residence and he was once injured as a result of a sexual act when he was 11. In another instance, Betz allegedly took an inappropriate photograph of the child and uploaded it to his computer.

In 2017, Betz pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of interfering with the custody of a committed person the state police filed against him in 2016 for harboring the same boy. He was sentenced in 2018 to serve 18 months in prison, but was given credit for time served and was paroled to serve six months of probation.

The boy ran away from his home in Washington County when he was 16. Police said they found him June 7, 2016, hiding in a bedroom closet at Betz's home.

After that, the boy was turned over to Mercer County Children and Youth Services and placed at the Keystone Charter School. However, he ran away from that facility, police said.

Police said it was discovered that at the end of November 2016, Betz traveled to Florida with the boy and one or two other men. Witnesses told police Betz got into an argument with one of the other men and returned home without the boy.

Police arrested Betz in Lawrence County in December 2016. Authorities found the boy with the other men at a hotel in Osceola County, Florida.