Reading police arrested an Ohio man after investigators said he traveled to Reading intending to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex.
Luis Rivera-Encarnacion, 38, was arrested Sept. 28 when he drove to Pendora Park at 8 a.m. — the place and time investigators said he agreed to meet the teen.
The person he was communicating with for four weeks before his arrest was in fact Criminal Investigator Joseph Snell, who took the online persona of a 15-year-old girl from Reading, police said.
Rivera-Encarnacion of Batavia, a suburb of Cincinnati, was committed to Berks County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail to await a hearing following arraignment before District Judge Carissa L. Johnson. He hasn’t posted bail, according to online court records.
He face charged of unlawful contact with a minor and criminal attempt to commit statutory sexual assault.
According to the probable cause affidavit:
Snell received a friend request on his undercover Facebook account from Rivera on Aug. 31. The detective’s profile account had a photo of a teenage girl.
He accepted the request and Rivera used the Facebook Messenger application to converse with the online persona.
Through the conversations, Snell learned that Rivera-Encarnacion is originally from Reading. The persona stated she was only 15 but Rivera-Encarnacion said they could continue to talk if they kept it between themselves.
As the conversation progressed, Rivera-Encarnaciona requested nude photos of her. He then began referring to the person as his girlfriend and said he was going to put an engagement ring on her finger when he traveled to Reading to visit family in late September.
Rivera-Encarnacion said he was going to get a hotel room when he came to Reading and planned to take the 15-year-old there to have “fun.” When asked what he meant, he said they could cuddle and, if she was ready, have sex.
He asked if she smoked marijuana and drank alcohol. Snell affirmed she did.
Rivera-Encarnacion described a specific sex act he wanted to perform on her.
After Rivera-Encarnacion requested photos of the teen, Snell sent a computer-generated photo depicting the face of a teen girl. Rivera sent several photos of himself, which Snell compared with a driver’s license photo of Rivera-Encarnacion and found they matched.
On Sept. 26, Rivera-Encarnacion texted the teen that he would be in Reading on Sept. 28 and he would not wait to see her. Snell suggested the park as a meeting place, and Rivera-Encarnacion said he would pick up the teen there and take her to the hotel to “make love.”
On Sept. 27, Snell drove past the home of a relative of Rivera-Encarnacion’s and saw Rivera-Encarnacion’s car parked out front. He texted Rivera-Encarnacion, using the 15-year-old’s persona, and he confirmed that he was hanging out with family.
The morning of Sept. 28, police set up surveillance around Pendora Park. At 8:01, Rivera-Encarnacion turned from Perkiomen Avenue onto South 19th Street.
Officers arrested him as soon as he pulled into the park lot.
He was taken to City Hall where he consented to be interviewed by Snell. Rivera-Encarnacion stated he “screwed up” and admitted to going to the park to meet a 15-year-old girl to take her back to a motel for sex. He said he had made reservations at a motel.
Rivera-Encarnacion also told Snell that he had an energy drink the girl had requested in his car along with marijuana.