Convicted sex offender Gerald Pope’s appeal to the state Superior Court has been granted, and his case is being sent back to McKean County Court for resentencing.
In an order dated last month, Senior Superior Court Judge James Gardner Colins penned an opinion saying Pope’s sentence for a charge of unlawful contact with a minor is illegal.
Pope, 46, formerly of Bradford but incarcerated in state prison since 2014, was convicted at trial in March 2014 of unlawful contact with a minor, charged as a first-degree felony; and corruption of minors, a third-degree felony. He was acquitted on charges alleging involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony; and other charges.
As part of the sentence, he was ordered to register his address with state police for the remainder of his lifetime.
According to the criminal complaint originally filed in the case, Pope made a teenage girl perform sex acts in exchange for permission to see her boyfriend.
After the sentence, Pope had filed a post conviction relief act petition arguing the trial court was wrong in ordering him to register for life, and that he should have been required to register for 25 years instead, according to Colins’ opinion in the case. The complaint was later amended to include that the charge of unlawful contact with a minor should have been a third-degree felony, rather than a first-degree felony.
A hearing was held on the matter in McKean County Court in 2018. On Nov. 15, 2018, McKean County President Judge John Pavlock granted the registration requirements portion of the filing, vacating the lifetime registration requirement and replacing it with a requirement for 25 years of registration instead. However, Pavlock denied Pope’s argument regarding the grading of the count for which he had been convicted.
Under Pennsylvania law, the charge of unlawful contact with a minor can be a third-degree felony, or the same grading as the most serious underlying offense. Because Pope had been charged with a first-degree felony, that was the grading for the unlawful contact charge as well. In previous state Supreme Court decisions, the judges had ruled that a defendant need not be charged with or found guilty of the underlying offense. The defendant need only contact a minor “for the purpose of engaging in the prohibited behaviors,” according to court records.
Pope, through attorney John Thomas, filed an appeal of Pavlock’s decision to the state Superior Court.
Colins wrote in the opinion filed last month that the grading of the unlawful contact charge as a first-degree felony was contrary to law, and the sentence imposed on Pope for the charge was illegal.
The judge explained that because Pope had been acquitted of the underlying offense, the grading of the unlawful contact charge should have reverted back to a third-degree felony. As such, the maximum sentence was 7 years of incarceration; Pope was sentenced to 62 to 124 months.
The Superior Court reversed Pavlock’s decision, vacated Pope’s sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. As of Tuesday, no date had been set for resentencing.
