{"id":30519,"date":"2025-11-10T23:54:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T23:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30519\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T23:54:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T23:54:06","slug":"pittsburgh-man-charged-with-attempting-to-solicit-sexual-contact-with-preteen-girl-on-online-chat-wpxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30519\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh man charged with attempting to solicit sexual contact with preteen girl on online chat \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">A Pittsburgh man is accused of attempting to solicit sexual contact with a pre-teenage girl on an online chat platform, Attorney General Dave Sunday announced Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Eric T. Gillespie, 57, faces four felony charges, including multiple counts of unlawful contact with a minor. A magisterial district judge denied bail, citing concerns over flight risk and public safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cOur Child Predator Section proactively uncovered this defendant who, under an online pseudonym, was lurking online to access children,\u201d Attorney General Sunday said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">An agent from the Office of Attorney General posed as an adult on an online chat platform, engaging in conversation with Gillespie. Authorities said Gillespie then attempted to arrange a meeting with a preteen girl in Lebanon County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The investigation, which is ongoing, was assisted by the Lebanon County District Attorney\u2019s Office. During the investigation, authorities said Gillespie alluded to methods of accessing children, and other evidence was found regarding contact with children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The Office of Attorney General encourages anyone with relevant information to contact them at 800-385-1044 and ask for Agent Roby, as the investigation continues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pittsburgh man is accused of attempting to solicit sexual contact with a pre-teenage girl on an online&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19359,19358,14487,73,75,74,19360],"class_list":{"0":"post-30519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-charged","9":"tag-eric-gillespie","10":"tag-minor","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-preteen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30519","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=30519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}