EMPORIUM – Police have stepped up their search for a former
Cameron County resident who walked away from a prison work detail
in Smethport on July 30 and remains on the run.
The search intensified last week after state police from
Emporium filed new charges against 24-year-old Joseph W. Chapman.
They’re accusing him of felony counts of rape, involuntary deviate
sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault for incidents
alleged to have occurred between November 2006 and April of this
year in Cameron County.
Officials at the McKean County Prison said they were unaware of
the felony charges pending against Chapman when he was permitted to
work outside of the prison as a trusty last month.
He is now the subject of a regional manhunt that has recently
focused on the Austin and Keating Summit areas in Potter and McKean
counties. Police now consider Chapman to be potentially dangerous
and are enlisting the public’s help in tracking him down.
Chapman is five-foot-nine, weighing about 180 pounds, with blond
hair, blue eyes and prescription eyeglasses. Originally from Erie,
he has lived in Emporium and Austin. Members of his immediate
family reside in Cameron County.
Chapman’s legal problems date back to December 2002, when he was
sent to jail for one to two years after pleading guilty to
statutory sexual assault. He was on probation earlier this year
when he was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol,
attempting to elude police and reckless endangerment.
The new charges prompted officials to revoke Chapman’s probation
and he was remanded to the McKean County Prison on April 4.
About a month later, with Chapman still behind bars, state
police at Emporium were called to investigate a report that Chapman
sexually assaulted a child.
According to an affidavit filed with District Judge Alvin Brown
of Emporium, the incident was reported by the victim’s mother.
A forensics medical examination of the victim in June led police
to file the felony charges against Chapman. By that time, he had
slipped away from his work assignment.
