Kelley

WINFIELD TWP — A Lyndora man was arrested Wednesday on charges he repeatedly sexually assaulted a township boy beginning more than 20 years ago when the alleged victim was 6 years old.

The defendant, Adam R. Kelley, 33, was 12 years old when the suspected assaults started at a home in Winfield Township, state police said.

District Judge Sue Haggerty arraigned Kelley on two counts each of rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years of age and statutory sexual assault, all felonies.

He also is charged with a pair of misdemeanors, indecent exposure and indecent assault of a person less than 16.

Kelley is being held in the Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is set for Feb. 24 at Haggerty’s office in Saxonburg.

Police criminal investigators filed the charges after interviewing the victim in January. It was not immediately known what prompted the accuser, who is now 27, to come forward.

“He was just ready to speak about it,” Trooper Max DeLuca, the investigating officer, said this morning.

The victim, who currently lives out of county, told police that Kelley abused him between 1995 and 2000. During that period the accuser was 6 to 11 years old and the defendant was 12 to 17 years old, according to court documents.

Throughout the years of abuse, the suspect allegedly warned the victim not to tell anyone because he would be in “trouble,” documents said.

“At 14 years of age (the accuser) confronted Kelley about the sexual abuse and called him a pedophile,” according to a police affidavit. “Kelley began punching (the accuser) and told him ‘If you ever talk about this again I’ll hurt you.’”

Under state law, the statute of limitations holds that victims under the age of 18 who were born before Aug. 27, 2002, have 12 years after their 18th birthday to file criminal charges.

Victims under the age of 18 born after Aug. 27, 2002, have 32 years after their 18th birthday to pursue an alleged perpetrator in criminal court.

At his arraignment, Kelley, who is self-employed, told Haggerty he is the father of two children, ages 2 and 16, and is engaged.

He also admitted he was arrested in 2001 for statutory sexual assault.

Butler County Court records showed that Kelley pleaded guilty to that crime, a felony, in 2002 and was sentenced to 3 to 6 months in county prison.