Facebook ‘friend’ gets prison time for assault

WEST CHESTER >> A Downingtown man who met a teenage girl on Facebook and later sexually assaulted her when they met face to face for the first time pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the encounter on Monday.

Alexander Ortiz, 22, entered a guilty plea to charges of statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and unlawful contact with a minor before Common Pleas Judge David Bortner. In return for his plea, he was sentenced to a prison term that he will be allowed to serve in Chester County Prison.

As part of the plea agreement

negotiated between Assistant District Attorney Megan King of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit and defense attorney Richard Meanix of West Chester, Ortiz was sentenced to one year less

one day to two years less two days. The sentence means that he will not have to spend time in the state prison system.

But according to the terms of the plea, Ortiz will not be considered for parole until he has served at least 20 months in prison, starting Tuesday. He was not given credit

for the time he had been held in county prison on $250,000 bail, since his arrest on June 2, 2016.

King explained to Bortner that the incident between Ortiz and the then15-year-old girl — who sat with her family in the rear of the courtroom — had occurred in October 2014. It had taken the girl

several months to work up the courage to come forward and report the assault, King said, essentially because she was concerned with the consequences.

“That’s what teenagers do sometimes,” she said.

According to King, the incident occurred on Oct. 28, 2014 at the West

Goshen Municipal Park on Fern Hill Road. Ortiz and the victim, who was not identified in court, had first met on the social media site and then later started sending text messages to one another. When they met at a prearranged date at the park, Ortiz forced himself on her.

Ortiz was initially charged with rape by forcible compulsion. Those charges were dropped in exchange for the plea.

The case was investigated by West Goshen Police Officer Jose Torres.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.