Dade Zander Bullers rejects plea deal on sexual abuse charges

RIDGWAY--Dade Zander Bullers, 25, of Ridgway, is charged with 54 counts of Sexual Abuse of Children, two counts of criminal use of a communication facility, and one count of unlawful contact with a minor. All counts are felonies. He rejected a plea deal in the 59th Judicial District on Monday, setting the stage for a jury trial in the coming months.

In January 2020, police say that 24-year-old Dade Zander Bullers engaged in a boyfriend/ girlfriend relationship with a 15-year-old female that turned sexual.

According to the complaint, Bullers and the victim exchanged nude photos of themselves mainly over Facebook Messenger and performed sex acts on themselves while video chatting.

Police say Bullers claimed he believed the victim was 18 then, but when police spoke with the victim, she said they both knew each other’s correct ages. The complaint says Bullers wanted to create a harem with the victim as the “main” of it and encouraged her to invite her friends. When police examined Bullers’s phone, they found 17 nude images of the victim, three images of child pornography involving indecent contact, and 11 images of child pornography involving nudity.

This is not Bullers first run-in with the law. Bullers of Hyde Avenue was charged with disseminating obscene materials, performances, and corruption of minors, all third-degree felonies, back in 2016 when he was 18 years old. According to court records, on April 20, 2016, in Johnsonburg, Bullers sent photographs of his genitals to a 16-year-old female through a private Facebook message and told her to send him pictures of her as well. He pled guilty in this case to one count of distributing sexual images to a minor and served 48 months on probation.

In 2020 Bullers accepted plea deals on two separate charges. He received 108 days of incarceration for a misdemeanor simple assault charge and 36 months in confinement for a second-degree felony charge of strangulation.

Bullers was scheduled to accept a plea deal in Elk County Court on the first February Return Day but rejected the offers. This led President Judge Shawn T. McMahon to schedule him for jury selection on March 13.

Bullers is currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institute in Forest County and returned there following his brief appearance in Elk County Court on Monday.