A 54-year-old North Cornwall Township man has been charged with a number of sexual offenses against children he was fostering.
Scott P. Thomas of the 900 block of Lilac Lane was charged yesterday with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, two counts of indecent assault of a person less than 13 years of age, corruption of minors, 22 counts of sexual abuse of children / child pornography, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
According to the criminal complaint filed by police, the series of offenses occurred between 2008 and 2013, but was only reported last November when police responded to a domestic dispute between two of Thomas’ foster children.
In the course of the domestic investigation, North Cornwall police said one of the children alerted them to the sexual allegations.
Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf confirmed this afternoon that Thomas is already awaiting trial on separate, earlier charges filed in late 2019 that relate to allegations of sexual assault against minors in 2017.
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The information that led to both the earlier charges and those filed yesterday was first discovered by police on Nov. 7, 2019, and Hess Graf said that no foster children resided with Thomas after that date.
If convicted of all of the charges filed yesterday, Thomas would face a maximum possible sentence of 192 years.
When police responded last Nov. 7 to the report of a fight between two of Thomas’ foster children, a 17-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, the girl told police she wanted to report something else to them.
At the time, according to police, Thomas’ residence was a state-approved foster home for children in the custody of Lebanon County Children and Youth Services.
The 25-page criminal complaint filed by police alleges that Thomas engaged in sexual contact with two female foster children while the victims were between 5-10 years old, that he showed graphic sexual images of children to victims, that he used marijuana and alcohol with a female foster child, and that he possessed over 500 computer images of young children engaged in sexual activity.
Police also allege that Thomas had sexual contact with a 13-year-old female he was babysitting at his home.
The search of his home that revealed the pornographic images also turned up “multiple glassine envelopes” with suspected methamphetamine residue. The police allege that Thomas’ repeatedly asked one female foster child to buy methamphetamine for him, and that some of those requests were by text message.
Thomas was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Anthony Verna early this afternoon, and has been committed to the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. His bail has been set at $250,000, according to DA Hess Graf.
This story has been updated to include additional and clarifying information on Thomas’ arraignment and bail. We have also corrected the number of individual charges and updated the maximum possible jail sentence.