Brookhaven man acquitted on most charges in sex abuse trial

A Brookhaven man was found guilty of two counts Friday but acquitted on four other offenses at the conclusion of a sexual assault trial this week before Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Scanlon.

David M. Cronin, 70, of the 100 block of Cambridge Road, was convicted on one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and a related charge, but found not guilty of indecent assault and aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 16 years old, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of a minor.

The jury deliberated for nine hours Thursday and nearly another four Friday,

and asked to see or hear several pieces of evidence and testimony before returning a verdict about an hour after courts had shut down for the holiday weekend.

Decade of assaults

During trial, jurors heard from the victim, now 29, who said she was 13 years old when Cronin began sexually assaulting her.

“He wanted to teach me things, because I didn’t know certain things, because I wasn’t dating,” the victim told Assistant District Attorney Danielle Nispel. “If I didn’t know certain things, then someone would hurt me.”

The victim told defense counsel Vincent DiFabio that the assaults occurred primarily in Brookhaven and continued through her middle school, high school and college years during summer months. She said Cronin would sometimes stop for a period of time, but the assaults would eventually begin again.

Cronin escalated the abuse to using sex toys on her and performing oral sex on her on at least one occasion in 2019 when she was 25 years old, the victim said. She said Cronin did not force her to touch him or perform any sex acts on him, but she would sometimes wake up without clothes on feeling pain in her vagina with no memory of what transpired.

The woman said Cronin gave her “medication” for her anxiety after she spoke with him about how he was making her uncomfortable and sometimes spiked her drinks with alcohol.

Nispel and the victim also went through pages of text conversations she had with a college professor beginning in November 2018, in which she described feeling damaged and violated, and said she suffered from self-harm, eating disorders, panic attacks and auditory hallucinations. The victim said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder in 2019.

Investigation into claims

Cronin was arrested June 7, 2019, after the woman disclosed the assaults to Delaware County Detective Michael Palmer. According to an affidavit of probable cause, the victim’s best friend had reported

the abuse to Brookhaven police in April of that year.

That friend is no longer close with the victim, but still testified that she recalled Cronin encouraging her to kiss the victim while he watched and him giving her alcohol in soda, then forcing her to drink it. She also said she recalled the victim saying Cronin had touched her in a car.

The victim described one instance where Cronin had driven her to the parking lot of his job, a car dealership on Baltimore Pike, and assaulted her in

his vehicle.

The victim was called into the Brookhaven police station to give a statement June 6, 2019, but said she did not know at that time why police wanted to talk to her.

Palmer testified that he spoke with the victim, who gave much the same account she had presented in her testimony. He said she was able to provide a lot of information on numerous events, as well as physical evidence in the form of sex toys and other items.

The victim claimed Cronin had taken her to a sex shop and bought her various vibrators, lotions and underwear, Palmer said. He identified several of those devices in court, as well as a safe where they had been stored.

Jurors also heard from Brookhaven Sgt. Tim Habich, who first spoke with the victim after her friend disclosed the abuse. After hearing some of her account, Habich said he decided to have her confront Cronin, who was in the police department lobby.

Habich said they went outside, where the victim told Cronin something to the effect that she had told the police everything and it was time for Cronin to be held accountable. Habich then sent the victim inside and asked Cronin what he had to say for himself.

“He said that it was all a mistake, that he made some mistakes. He had an alcohol problem and everything was alcohol fueled,” Habich said. “I asked him directly if he had any sexual relations with (the victim) and he told me that he did. I asked him to elaborate and he said that approximately a year before, they went out to dinner at Applebee’s and that night he imbibed some alcohol, and he said that night … they had sex. I asked him to explain what he meant by that and he said he performed oral sex on her.”

Habich said Cronin then started to feel dizzy so he led him back inside.

Denied charges

Cronin also took the stand, but denied remembering anything about that conversation and claimed he would never have said that. He said he “passed out” after being hit with the accusation of raping a 12-year-old.

Cronin said he had taken the victim to the police station that morning thinking officers wanted to talk to her about another matter entirely. He eventually went to a door in the lobby and identified himself, but an officer came out and began “screaming” at him, he said.

Cronin denied having any sexual contact with the victim whatsoever, buying her sex toys or underwear, or even speaking to her about dating or sex. He said he was rarely alone with the girl. Cronin also claimed there was nowhere he could have parked at the dealership to assault her without being seen and that he does not drink alcohol.

“I never sexually, physically, or emotionally abused that young lady at any time in her life,” he said. “She was treated with total respect.”

Wrapping up

DeFabio argued in closing that the victim had been inconsistent with times and dates of events, and questioned her mental health prior to her diagnosis. He noted there were periods she claimed to have been alone with

Cronin that could not have happened and that even her friend did not remember some of the instances of misconduct she was supposed to have been present for.

DeFabio noted the parking lot story had not appeared in any prior statement and that Habich had not produced any notes about what was said outside the station June 6. He added that the victim herself did not remember anything about an Applebee’s and that detectives apparently never questioned her about it after Cronin allegedly made that statement.

Nispel argued that consistency in this context was not repeating exactly the same thing verbatim every time, but in providing numerous examples of what abuse had occurred over the span of more than a decade, even if some dates did not bear out.

She pointed to the fact that the victim herself never reported the abuse except in what she believed were private communications with professors, and even that was months before she spoke to detectives. Nispel argued those messages, along with the testimony of the friend and Cronin’s alleged admission to the Applebee’s incident when confronted, provided corroboration of the victim’s claims.

Cronin had been free on $50,000 cash bail since June 20, 2019, but Judge Scanlon granted Nispel’s motion to revoke bail Friday and set sentencing for July 24, pending a psychosexual evaluation.