SAXONBURG — A 19-year-old Penn Township man accused of having sex with a teenage girl in a car at a church parking lot was ordered held for court at a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Lee J. Rapsinski is charged with statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and corruption of minors, all felonies. He also is charged with indecent exposure and indecent assault.

State police arrested Rapsinski following an investigation that began when the 14-year-old girl’s mother learned her daughter on Jan. 7 had sneaked out of their house in Buffalo Township and met up with the defendant.

Investigators suspect the two teens under the cover of night drove to Saxonburg and parked at a church. They had sexual intercourse in the back seat of the vehicle, according to court documents.

The mother testified at the hearing that she grounded her daughter and took away the teen’s cell phone.

The Butler Eagle is not identifying the mother so as not to identify the girl.

The woman inspected the phone and discovered text messages the girl and defendant exchanged on the social media app Snapchat.

The messages provided “details of them meeting up and having sexual relations,” the mother testified.

She confronted her daughter and then notified authorities. She also took screen shots of the texts, which she turned over to police.

A representative of the Alliance For Children, an advocacy center for child abuse victims, interviewed the girl Jan. 18.

On cross-examination by defense attorney Joseph Kecskemethy, the mother acknowledged that she did not believe her daughter was physically forced to have sex that night.

“I don’t think that she was restrained,” the woman said, “but I feel she was scared, intimidated and nervous.”

She also admitted that she did not know who — her daughter or Rapsinski — initiated the Snapchat messaging.

Trooper Max DeLuca, too, was unable to say who first messaged who, during his testimony.

Much of Kecskemethy’s questioning of DeLuca centered on whether Rapsinski knew the girl’s age. DeLuca said that she told authorities that he knew she was 14.

The trooper said he could not recall if the defendant or accuser ever discussed their ages in their Snapchat messaging.

“Is there any corroborating evidence that he knew her age?” Kecskemethy asked.

DeLuca referred to a “mutual friend” of the girl and Rapsinski, who had previous conversations with them both, during which the defendant would have known the girl was 14.

District Judge Sue Haggerty ruled there was sufficient evidence to hold the case for trial.

Rapsinski, who is free on $10,000 unsecured bail, faces formal arraignment May 30 in Butler County Court.