MILFORD, PA \u2014 On Tuesday, July 20, Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin announced charges against an\u00a0 Erie, PA man for attempted trafficking of a twelve-year-old child. <\/p>\n
Jason Sidener,\u00a0 age 51, with a last known address of Erie, PA, was arrested on July 21.\u00a0 Detectives from the District Attorney\u2019s Office Criminal Investigation Division charged Sidener with the charges of criminal attempt in Trafficking in Individuals, criminal attempt\u00a0 of patronizing a victim of sexual servitude, two charges of unlawful contact with a minor,\u00a0 criminal attempt of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and criminal attempt of rape of\u00a0 a child, all felonies. The charges of attempted trafficking in persons and attempted\u00a0 patronizing a victim of sexual servitude are human trafficking offenses under Pennsylvania\u00a0 Law.\u00a0 A person charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.<\/p>\n
According to the affidavit of probable cause supporting the charges, Detectives at\u00a0 the District Attorney\u2019s Office obtained information that Sidener interested in \u201ctaboo\u201d and was in Northern Wayne County and willing to travel to Pike County to engage in sexual\u00a0 contact with a twelve-year-old child for payment of $470.00. When Sidener arrived at the\u00a0 location, detectives arrested him. In his possession detectives found $470.00 in cash and a\u00a0 small amount of crystalline substance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
District Attorney Tonkin commented \u201cAny adult seeking engage in sexual contact\u00a0 with a child is depraved. Those that are willing to pay for sexual contact with a minor bring\u00a0 the depravity to a higher level. Any commercial sex act with a minor is a human trafficking\u00a0 offense and brings with it higher penalties. At the Pike County District Attorney\u2019s Office, we\u00a0 will continue to seek out and arrest child predators.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Magisterial District Judge Cristin Cavallaro denied bail and Sidener was taken to\u00a0 Pike County Correctional Facility in lieu of posting bail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 4, 2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyone who has any information on any person abusing children should call Pennsylvania\u00a0 Childline at 800\/932-0313.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILFORD, PA \u2014 On Tuesday, July 20, Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin announced charges against an\u00a0 Erie,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,810,4399],"class_list":["post-265607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-human-trafficking","tag-pike-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265607","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=265607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}