A Lititz man arrested by the Lancaster County Human Trafficking Task Force (HTTF) in May pled guilty last week to six counts in Lancaster County Court after sending and asking for lewd messages from individuals he believed to be children.
Sean Deemer, 55, of the 500 block of Golden Street, was sentenced Nov. 18 by Lancaster County Judge Margaret Miller to four to eight years in prison followed by five years of probation after admitting to charges on two dockets resulting from an undercover investigation by the FBI and the HTTF.
Deemer pled guilty to three counts of unlawful contact with a minor on each docket. Charges of disseminating explicit sexual material to a minor, criminal use of a communication facility, photographing or filming a sex act of a child and corruption of minors originally filed in May were dismissed.
According to investigators:
Between May 6-12, 2021, an FBI undercover agent posing as an 11-year-old girl on the mobile messaging application KiK had conversation with Deemer. A subpoena served on KiK by the FBI found the user’s IP addresses used during the conversation, tracking back to Deemer.
During the conversation, the undercover agent exchanged 147 messages, 142 of which occurred after the FBI agent identified themselves as an 11-year-old girl. The conversation included “multiple explicit and lewd messages and photos” from Deemer.
The FBI notified Lititz Borough Police about the case on April 27. Police then referred it to the HTTF, which began its own conversation with Deemer posing as a 12-year-old girl. Deemer again made multiple requests for explicit photos and sent lewd messages.
Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Fritz Haverstick prosecuted the case and arranged the negotiated guilty plea.
Staff writer Michael Yoder is an award-winning journalist who has been honored with several Keystone Press Awards for his investigative pieces.
