Ex-trooper admits violating sentence
Former Pottstown man pleads guilty to indecent contact with underage girl
NORRISTOWN >> A disgraced former Pennsylvania state police trooper who served prison time for sexually assaulting women and teenage girls while on duty two decades ago admitted he violated his sentence by having indecent contact with an underage girl in Berks.
Michael K. Evans, 52, formerly of Belleview Avenue in Pottstown, showed no emotion as he appeared in Montgomery County Court on Thursday and admitted that his recent arrest and conviction in Berks County is a violation of the probationary period he’s still serving in connection with his 2000 conviction for sexually abusing three teenagers and three women while on duty with the Skippack barracks.
Judge William R. Carpenter said he will sentence Evans later this year for the violation after court officials complete a pre-sentence investigation report. Evans faces a possible maximum sentence of 2½ to 5 years in prison for the violation, according to testimony.
Assistant District Attorney
Roderick Fancher vowed to seek the maximum sentence against Evans for the violation.
“He admitted that he was in violation. We’re looking for as much time as possible that we can keep him away because he is a danger to everybody, specifically to young girls,” Fancher said.
Fancher advised the judge that prosecutors will ask that any sentence Evans receives for the violation be imposed consecutively to the sentence Evans receives for his latest conviction in Berks.
Evans, wearing a bright yellow Berks County Jail shirt, testified on Thursday that he expects to be sentenced in Berks later this year to a negotiated term of 5 to 10 years in prison. Evans faces a Dec. 5 sentencing hearing in Berks, officials said.
According to testimony, Evans pleaded guilty in Berks County Court on Aug. 15 to new charges of corruption of a minor, indecent exposure and indecent assault of a person under 16 in connection with incidents that occurred between June and August 2018, including at his most recent residence in Longswamp Township.
Under extensive questioning by Fancher, Evans said he admitted in Berks court to having inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old girl at his Mertztown home and that he fondled her and asked her to pose for photographs on his motorcycle while she wore a bra and shorts inside his garage.
Evans told Fancher and Carpenter he also admitted to fondling the girl while he and an adult woman in the garage engaged in a sex act.
“I asked him the specifics about every single thing he did because we’re going to have a sentencing hearing coming up and I want to be able to establish the specific facts of the violation and his conduct,” Fancher said.
Evans quibbled with Fancher when Fancher, reading from an affidavit of probable cause, asked Evans if he paid the 15-year-old girl during the encounter. Evans replied he’s aware of what the arrest affidavit alleges but that he didn’t pay the girl. Pressed further by Fancher, Evans admitted he “offered” the girl money.
Evans first captured headlines when he was arrested Feb. 15, 2000, on charges that he engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with three teenage girls while on duty between July 1997 and September 1999. Evans, then 33 and a trooper since 1995, was assigned to the Skippack barracks at the time.
Two of the teenagers were runaways Evans was ordered to transport. Another victim was a 16-yearold Perkiomenville girl who Evans propositioned while investigating a burglary in her parents’ home in July 1997, asking if she would pose for naked photographs to be his “locker girl,” prosecutors alleged at the time.
At the time of Evans’s arrest, Montgomery County prosecutors held a press conference asking any other victims to come forward. More women did come forward and Evans was re-arrested in April 2000 on charges involving incidents with three adult women who accused the trooper of using his badge to coerce them into sexual relations in exchange for protection or leniency.
At the time, then Assistant District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, who is now a county judge, argued Evans was a “predator” who used his badge to victimize females. Ferman argued preying upon six different victims while on duty as a trooper was “the ultimate abuse of authority.”
After months of highly publicized legal wrangling between Ferman and Evans’s defense lawyer, Marc R. Steinberg, the onetime trooper accepted a plea agreement and on Oct. 3, 2000, he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault, corruption of minors and official oppression.
As part of that plea agreement, Judge Carpenter sentenced Evans to five to 10 years in prison, to be followed by 10 years’ probation, and Evans was forced to resign from the police force.
The criminal case against Evans also resulted in an internal investigation into how the state police addressed sexual misconduct complaints against troopers and other employees.
Evans was released from prison on parole in April 2008. However, with the consecutive probationary period, Evans’s court supervision isn’t set to expire until February 2020. ans was still serving his probationary period when he was arrested by state police at Reading last August and accused of having inappropriate contact with the 15-year-old girl at his Mertztown area home.
“We’re looking for as much time as possible that we can keep him away because heisa danger to everybody, specifically to young girls.”
- Montgomery County Prosecutor Roderick Fancher