Girl testifies employee molested her
Ex-Gwynedd-Mercy Academy IT worker accused of indecency
A teenage girl remained calm as she told a judge that a former information technology employee at GwyneddMercy Academy had indecent contact with her at the Lower Gwynedd school and at her Upper Gwynedd home.
“I wanted to scream. I just kept telling him to get off me,” the girl testified on Monday in Montgomery County Court, recalling an April 4, 2016, incident that occurred at her home when Marcus Forte allegedly pinned her down on a sofa and touched her in an indecent manner. “I just realized I had no control at all.”
The girl, who was 13 years old at the time of the alleged assault, testified Forte also touched her inappropriately and kissed her on the face and neck numerous times in his office behind closed doors at the elementary school between October 2015 and April 2016 while she was in the seventh-grade.
“I couldn’t tell if it was a normal thing or not because he told me I couldn’t tell my parents,” the girl, now 15, added during her testimony, trying to explain why she didn’t immediately tell an adult about the incidents.
Forte, 41, formerly of the 2400 block of Linksman Lane, Warrington, Bucks County, appeared to avoid eye contact with the girl as she testified. The girl, wearing a Catholic school uniform and wearing a red ribbon in her hair, occasionally petted the district attorney’s comfort dog, “Turks,” who lay at her feet in the witness box, as she testified.
Forte faces charges of institutional sexual assault, indecent assault without consent, indecent assault of a person under 16, corruption of a minor, unlawful contact with a minor and false imprisonment of a minor in connection with the alleged incidents.
Forte, if convicted of all the charges at trial, faces a possible maximum sentence of 18½ to 37
years in prison.
Judge Thomas C. Branca is acting as the sole factfinder during the non-jury trial, which is expected to last several days.
With the charges, Assistant District Attorney M.
Stewart Ryan and co-prosecutor Lucy Qui alleged Forte touched the girl inappropriately and exchanged inappropriate text messages with her on numerous occasions. Forte met the juvenile when he was employed in the IT department at the school beginning in July 2013.
But defense lawyer Philip David Press suggested the girl is not being truthful and questioned why she did not tell anyone about the incidents at the time they allegedly occurred. Pointing to testimony that Forte had performed work on the fireplace at the girl’s home on April 4, Press suggested he would have had soot on his hands but that there is no evidence that soot was found on the girl’s clothes or the sofa where she alleged
Forte had pinned her down during the assault.
The investigation of Forte began in June 2016, according to testimony and a criminal complaint filed by Upper Gwynedd Detective Raymond Royds.
Kelly Schneider, a psychotherapist, testified the girl disclosed, during a June 2016 counseling session, some of Forte’s alleged inappropriate conduct. Schneider testified she immediately informed the girl’s mother and contacted the proper authorities.
“She looked anxious and confused,” Schneider testified, describing the girl’s demeanor when she made the disclosure. “She was very, very upset, crying.”
During the investigation, detectives uncovered Facebook
instant messages between Forte and the girl between December and May during which Forte allegedly wrote to the girl, “Be my friend because you’re my favorite and I love you. And come visit me more often so I can give you more hugs and smooches…and candy of course.”
Forte provided the girl with his cellphone number and told her to text him “if you need me,” according to testimony.
The girl texted Forte in April, telling him, “you took the hugs to the extreme today,” and Forte replied, “are you upset?” according to the arrest affidavit.
“So you don’t like my extreme hugging?” Forte asked the girl.
“No,” the girl texted back, according to court papers.
The girl disclosed to authorities that when she was home sick from school on April 4, Forte picked her up and took her to a Starbucks for coffee. When Forte took the girl home, he entered her home despite her saying “bye” and began touching and tickling her, the girl testified.
“(The girl) advised she didn’t know what to do,” Royds wrote in the arrest affidavit, alleging Forte then got on top of the girl, touched her in an indecent manner and tried to kiss her.
The girl told detectives Forte “literally tried to make out with me,” according to the arrest affidavit. The girl said “she kept her lips sealed and told him to stop while Forte ignored her.”
The girl eventually was able to make her way to her kitchen but Forte followed and accosted her again by kissing and touching her inappropriately, according to testimony. The girl told Forte that her mom was on her way home soon and Forte finally left, prosecutors alleged.
Prosecutors said school officials were cooperative throughout the investigation.
Sister Anne Crampsie, principal at the school at the time of the alleged incidents, testified the first she heard of any allegations of inappropriate behavior by Forte was the day he was arrested. Forte left the school in February 2016, according to testimony, but it was not revealed why he left at that time.
“I wanted to scream. I just kept telling him to get off me.” — Victim of alleged molestation by former Gwynedd-Mercy employee