Daycare Operator's Husband Headed To Trial On Molestation Charges
BUTLER (KDKA) - A Chicora man has been held for trial on charges that he molested several children at his wife's Butler County daycare.
Roger Young was in court Tuesday afternoon for a preliminary hearing where he was ordered to stand trial on charges of indecent assault and corrupting the morals of a minor involving three alleged victims.
Young's wife operated the Patti Cake Childcare Center from their home.
Pennsylvania State Trooper Joshua Anderson brought a laptop to the hearing with eight surveillance clips from the daycare center involving two alleged victims.
They range in time from Nov. 8, 2010, at 3:53 p.m. to Nov. 22, 2010, at 4:46 p.m. He also alleges that surveillance tape from May of 2011 might have been tampered with.
According to Trooper Anderson, the video shows Young's inappropriate activity. But the defense says that's not the case.
Defense attorney Michael Zunder would not talk with reporters, but argued in court that the video often did not show enough to definitively establish the position of Young's hands or the children's bodies or exactly what was happening in those eight clips.
However, the prosecutor countered that a third alleged victim, a 9-year-old, gave a statement to child welfare investigators and established a pattern of his inappropriate touching while children sat on his lap.
Prosecutors also say Young's wife wrote a letter to the family of one alleged victim explaining one allegation that the child grabbed his crotch. The letter explained what the child touched was in actuality Play-Doh.
Butler County District Judge Lewis Stoughton ruled there was enough evidence to hold Young for trial.
In January, an assistant DA with the Butler County District Attorney's Office agreed to allow Young to take a lie detector test to see if he would go to trial. That offer has since been withdrawn.
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