Judge in sex abuse case dismisses pleas for leniency

Offender handed 10-year sentence

Daniel Teed’s family said the 56-year-old didn’t know that a 16-year-old girl he sexually abused with other men at parties advertised on Craigslist by a former Beaver County basketball coach was underage.

In arguing for leniency Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab, Teed’s siblings and sons said such a heinous crime doesn’t square with the upstanding businessman and “role model”they have known.

Teed told his family he didn’t know the girl, identified in court only as “Minor A,” was a 10th-grader.

“I believe him,” said his sister, Denise Winsor, who also described her brother as a “victim.”

Judge Schwab was having none of that.

An investigation by the FBI and Pittsburgh police, which uncovered communications between Teed and the man who arranged the parties, former basketball coach Ralph Ruprecht, clearly indicatedthey knew she was 16.

“The defendant was not confused about the victim’s age,” the judge said. “The defendant was not a ‘victim.’ This young lady was the victim.”

The judge also said that Teed’s conduct was not a “mistake,” as some of his family asserted in court and in letters.

“It is a crime against the most innocent of persons,” he said. “It is not a ‘mistake.’”

He sentenced Teed, of Marshall, to 10 years in federal prison followed by 20 years of probation.

The case developed out of the prosecution in state court of Ruprecht, a former girls basketball coach in Ambridge who is serving eight to 16 years in prison for rape and other offenses involving underage girls.

Ruprecht arranged for sex parties with underage and adult women at hotels and an apartment on Penn Avenue in the Strip District. One of the victims was the 16-year-old, who in 2015 and 2016 was forced to have sex with as many as nine men. The Post-Gazette does not name the victims of sex crimes.

Teed, a former supervisor in a small Crawford County township who once ran for the state Legislature, was one ofRuprecht’s customers.

He admitted that he sexually abused the girl with Ruprecht and on at least one occasion picked her up at her house and drove her to one of the parties at a hotel.

As part of his plea in June, he admitted that he talked to the girl about her school activities and her plans for college. Healso texted her directly.

The girl did not appear in court, but an FBI victim advocate read a statement she prepared in which she said she is frequently depressed and apathetic about life because of whathappened to her.

“I lost all of the trust I had in everyone and everything,” she said.

Teed, a father of two who formerly ran the family’s trucking business, said he regrets the heartache he has caused his family, especially his grown sons, and the harm he caused the victim.

“I’m here to take full responsibility for the actions I have been a part of,” he said.

Judge Schwab allowed Teed to self-report to prison in January.