Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Prison for sex contact with underage girls
Dresher man met victims on SnapChat
NORRISTOWN » As the parents of his victims confronted him in court, an Upper Dublin man learned he’s headed to prison on charges he had inappropriate sexual contact with underage girls he met while using social media applications.
Jeffrey Brian Wiener, 26, of the 3200 block of Ayr Lane in the Dresher section of Upper Dublin, was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated indecent assault of a child less than 16 and knowingly permitting children to photograph or film sexual material in connection with multiple incidents that occurred between May and December of 2020 in Upper Dublin and Horsham.
Judge Steven T. O’Neill, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter, also ordered Wiener to complete three years’ probation following parole, meaning Wiener will be under court supervision for 13 years.
Wiener also faces a lifetime requirement to report his address to state police in order to comply with Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.
“You have irreparably changed lives before they ever got started. You preyed upon the vulnerable. You have violated society’s rules,” O’Neill addressed Wiener. “What is ahead for these children is difficult. Trust has been violated.”
O’Neill also ordered Wiener to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and to comply with all recommendations for treatment.
Assistant District Attorney Lauren Marvel sought the state prison term and said the negotiated plea agreement was supported by the victims’ families.
“I wanted to see your face and let you know you did damage to my granddaughter. I’m glad the cops got you and you can’t do damage to anyone else,” the grandmother of one victim addressed Wiener directly.
The father of a second victim read a statement from his daughter in which she called Wiener “disgusting.” He added, “What you did was reprehensible.”
Wiener, who was represented by defense lawyer David Craig McKenzie III, showed no emotion during the hearing and did not address those in the courtroom before learning his fate. Wiener declined to comment to a reporter as he was led from the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies to begin serving the state prison term.
With the charges, prosecutors alleged that between May and June of 2020 Wiener, then 24, had inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old girl he communicated with through Snapchat. During an interview by authorities, the girl recalled an encounter when Wiener picked her up at a party in his vehicle and took the intoxicated girl to his home where he sexually assaulted her, according to the criminal complaint filed by detectives from Upper Dublin and Horsham.
The girl told investigators “she just laid there and could hardly move because she drank a lot,” according to court documents. The girl stated “it was like a movie” and that she “pretended she was not there or
it wasn't her at the time of the act.”
Wiener knew the girl was 15 at the time of the incident, detectives alleged.
Investigators also learned that Wiener had been in contact with multiple other underage girls while using social media apps, between July and December of 2020, during which he promised them money, drugs or alcohol if they sent him nude photos or videos or permitted him to touch them inappropriately, according to court documents. Prosecutors alleged Wiener caused the minors to create child pornography.
Detectives traced payments Wiener sent to the girls via cash apps.
“He stated that all the females are between the ages of 13 and 15 and he has been communicating with them for approximately a year using iMessage, Snapchat, Tinder and other third-party applications,” detectives wrote in the arrest affidavit, adding Wiener admitted to giving the girls money, nicotine or alcohol in exchange for sexual favors.
Wiener told investigators he received nude photos of the girls from them on Snapchat and that he delivered the money in-person or sent it via various cash apps.
Other charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a minor, statutory sexual assault, endangering the welfare of children, criminal use of a communication facility, corruption of minors and unlawful contact with minors were dismissed against Wiener as part of the plea agreement.