{"id":205457,"date":"2026-05-29T15:56:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205457\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:56:27","slug":"former-operator-of-berkshire-mall-store-gets-life-sentence-for-sex-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205457\/","title":{"rendered":"Former operator of Berkshire Mall store gets life sentence for sex trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Lower Heidelberg Township man will spend the rest of his life in prison for grooming and sexually assaulting two girls inside a shop he operated at the Berkshire Mall.<\/p>\n

Steven P. Najarian, 54, of the first block of Knollwood Drive was convicted by a jury in October of two counts of sex trafficking, two counts of witness intimidation, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced Tuesday by Berks County Judge Patrick Barrett to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus seven to 20 years.<\/p>\n

Najarian was charged in two cases, with the charges being filed just weeks apart.<\/p>\n

He was first taken into custody<\/a> on Dec. 17, 2024, and charged with rape, trafficking in individuals, witness intimidation, obstructing a child abuse investigation, corruption of minors and related counts.<\/p>\n

He was charged in a second case<\/a> in January 2025.<\/p>\n

In both cases, police said, Najarian groomed juvenile girls and had sexual contact with them inside a store called The Morgue he operated at the mall.<\/p>\n

Wyomissing police began investigating Najarian in November 2024. Both cases were led by Detective Joseph Klatt.<\/p>\n

The victims told police Najarian would give them gifts, cash and free items from the store. That led to engaging in sexual acts.<\/p>\n

One of the victims said Najarian used his smartphone to film their sexual encounters and told her that he wanted her to engage as part of a \u201cthreesome\u201d with his adult male friend. Under pressure from Najarian, she recorded a video of herself showering and sent it to him.<\/p>\n

That victim also told police that Najarian threatened he would hire someone to kill her if she told anyone about their relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lower Heidelberg Township man will spend the rest of his life in prison for grooming and sexually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,46,182,139,28,128,130,129,706,133],"class_list":["post-205457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg","tag-wyomissing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}