Bristol Twp. contractors face trial on dozens of fraud charges

Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2014

He promised that her home would be good as new in 60 days.

That was in October 2012 when Sharon Brown said that she signed a contract with John “Jack” Thayer Jr. to rebuild her fire-ravaged home. She paid him a little more than $160,000, more than half the $202,000 estimate he provided.

Nearly two years later, her Bristol Township home is “95 percent” finished, said Brown, 63. But she had to hire another contractor to complete the work that she alleges Thayer and Hammertime Construction didn’t.

The same story — with the same promises — were repeated Wednesday in Falls district court where more than a dozen witnesses took the stand during a preliminary hearing for father and son contractors who are accused of accepting $771,165 for work that was never started or completed.

Authorities allege that John “Jack” Thayer Jr., 60, and his son Ryan, 28, a former Bristol Township Zoning Hearing Board member, took the money from 10 individuals — mostly older homeowners — between March 2011 and April.

Ryan Thayer (Left) and John Thayer Jr.

Both Thayers face at least two dozen felony charges, most of which were held for trial following a four-hour preliminary hearing before District Judge Jan Vislosky. She held all 36 charges against Ryan Thayer, and held 29 of the 30 charges against his father. Ryan Thayer is free on $25,000 unsecured bail. His father is free on $75,000 unsecured bail.

The Thayers operated Hammertime Construction and Hammertime Demolition and Hauling, both based in Bristol Township.

Until his registration expired May 30, Ryan Thayer was listed as the owner of Hammertime Demolition and Hauling, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Home Improvement Contractor website. His dad owned Hammertime Construction Inc., whose registration expired in July 2011, according to the AG website.

Defense attorneys Niels Eriksen Jr. and Michael Parlow, who represented John and Ryan Thayer respectively, appeared to focus much of their cross examination on establishing whether father or son were responsible for fulfilling the contracts, accepting payments, and whether the documents property owners signed were considered contracts.

County detectives launched their investigation into the Thayers earlier this year after the Bucks County Office of Consumer Protection received numerous complaints about their businesses during the past two years.

Prosecutors allege the Thayers targeted adults ages 60 and older. At least half of the alleged victims claimed that Ryan Thayer appeared at their homes the night they were damaged by fires or weather-related issues, offering his services for debris removal and reconstruction.

That is how Sharon Brown — one of 15 witnesses who testified — said that she met Ryan Thayer, who showed up at her Rocky Pool Lane home the April 2012 night of a fire.

Ryan Thayer claimed he knew one of her nephews in high school, and offered to donate a trash bin to her cleanup efforts, according to Brown’s nephew, Wayne Kandravi, who acted as his aunt’s go-between with the Thayers.

Brown testified that it was her understanding that Hammertime Construction would perform the work, noting that was the name on the contract.

After work started in December 2012, Brown said she visited the home daily, but rarely saw any work happening. She met Jack Thayer there once to pick out siding for the home. She never saw Ryan Thayer at the property.

Kandravi testified at first Ryan Thayer would regularly communicate with him, but about two months after work started, the delays started. So did the excuses.

When the HVAC system installation deadline passed, he was told there was a death in the subcontractor’s family. The system was never installed, he added.

In March, Jack Thayer told Kandravi that he would be taking over the project for Ryan. Not long after that, Kandravi said he learned construction materials were being removed from the home. Jack Thayer told him he needed to use the items to finish another renovation project — so he could use the money to finish Brown’s home, Kandravi testified.

By May 2013 all work stopped at the house, Kandravi said.

Brown testified she paid a second contractor another $82,000 to finish her home.

Brown’s story sounded similar to the one that 84-year-old Robert Smedley told. He testified that Ryan Thayer, who lives near his Goldenridge home, showed up the night an electrical fire damaged his home in April 2013.

The younger Thayer offered to board up and secure the home immediately, he said. The next day, Smedley and his daughters met with Ryan and his dad who verbally promised to rebuild the home by October 2013.

Smedley testified the Thayers presented him with what he called a “fuzzy” contract that laid out the work that would be done.

The initial contract didn’t list a payment schedule, testified Peter Miles, Smedley’s son-in-law who acted as his primary contact with the Thayers. A revised document provided the payment breakdown, but no start or completion dates, Miles testified.

The family paid the Thayers a $50,000 down payment for reconstruction, which Miles said was told would take them through the required mechanical inspections. The payment represented about one-third of the $157,531 estimate to rebuild. The Smedleys also paid $10,167 to cover the emergency boarding up of the house and the demolition of the burned portion of the home.

The reconstruction work started in late June 2013, but it didn’t last long, Miles said.

After all work stopped in August, the family sent two dozen calls, text messages and emails to Ryan Thayer but got no response, Miles said. When he finally spoke with Jack Thayer, he told Miles he didn’t know when work would resume.

Eventually, the Smedleys brought in a second contractor who finished the reconstruction earlier this year. That contractor learned that the Thayers never secured the proper permits for the work.

They weren’t the only ones either, according to Bristol Township department of licenses and inspection officials.

The office did not issue any building or demolition permits to the Thayers or Hammertime Demolition and Hauling for three other projects between 2011 and 2012, office manager Nicole Szogi testified.

Ryan Thayer applied for demolition permit for one of the jobs, but he never paid for it, so it was not issued, she added. He applied for a building permit, but it was denied because he didn’t apply for other related permits which would be issued at the same time, Szogi said.

Without the required township permits, construction work cannot start, testified Glenn Kucher, the township’s director of building and planning development.

Kucher also testified that Jack Thayer — not Ryan — was the one who mostly applied for permits in his office.

But attorney Eriksen asked Kucher if the older Thayer could have been dropping off applications for his son.

“Could be,” Kucher replied.

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

Princeton woman charged in 2 Bensalem hit & run accidents

Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2014

After leading Bensalem police on a pursuit after a hit-and-run accident Thursday morning, a 19-year-old Princeton woman ran a red light and caused another crash, according to police.

Sara Culhane

The unidentified driver of the other car in the second crash was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown where she was listed in stable condition Thursday night, police said.

The alleged hit-and-run driver, Sara Culhane, of Library Place, was also taken to St. Mary for treatment of unspecified injuries and released Thursday afternoon, police said.

The two accidents occurred two miles apart. Bensalem police said they were pursuing Culhane in her 2006 black BMW after she hit a car on Blanche Road and drove away. The driver of that car was not injured, Sgt. William McVey said.

Responding police saw the BMW and attempted to stop it near the intersection of Mechanicsville and Street roads, but they said Culhane continued driving north on Mechanicsville Road. Bensalem terminated the pursuit after a patrol supervisor determined that Culhane wasn’t stopping, according to police.

The BMW continued driving north on Mechanicsville Road, where it failed to stop at a red light around 10 a.m. and struck a Toyota Corolla that was westbound on Street Road, police said.

After the second crash, police said Culhane got out of her damaged car and started running from the crash scene. Police officers ran after her and she was taken into custody.

Culhane allegedly kicked one of the officers in the head when they were trying to arrest her. The officer didn’t require medical treatment, police said.

Culhane is charged with aggravated assault, fleeing or attempting to elude police, accidents involving death or personal injury, resisting arrest and traffic violations. She was arraigned before Bensalem District Judge Joseph Falcone and sent to Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $750,000 bail.

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

Sex, lies and the Internet: protecting teens from predators

Posted: Sunday, September 7, 2014 

One spaghetti strap slid down her shoulder in the photo, exposing part of her cleavage as she stuck her tongue out Miley Cyrus-style and pushed up her butt as if in mid-twerk.

Sounds like a typical Facebook profile picture for a college freshman. Only this one belongs to a 12-year-old girl.

While such a provocative pose posted on social media may shock some adults, Jennie Noll is not among them. The girl who posted the sexy selfie is one of the subjects in the Penn State University professor’s latest study on the Internet lives of teenage girls.

Also not shocking to Noll is that a teenage girl would meet a strange man after accepting an online friend invitation and never confirming his identity. In a study published last year, Noll found nearly one in three girls, some as young as 14, admitted doing that.

Adam Carnevale

“It’s a bigger problem than you think it is,” said Noll, a human development professor and director of research and education at Penn State’s Network on Child Protection and Well-Being.

It’s a problem that captured local attention recently with the arrest of 27-year-old Adam Carnevale, a Lawrenceville, New Jersey, man accused of offering at least six Bucks County girls money in exchange for nude pictures and sexual favors. He recruited the girls, who were between 12 and 15 years old, through Facebook friend requests.

Five of the six accepted his offer, police say.

This case isn’t the only recent incident involving an older man who allegedly used social media to meet underage girls for sex, police say.

Michael Dougherty, 42, of Middletown, is accused of sexually assaulting and filming a 16-year-old girl who first met him on the smartphone app “Whisper.” The girl alleges she thought Dougherty was going to help her run away from home, but the suspect took her instead to a Bensalem motel where he sexually assaulted her, police said.

Both suspects have preliminary hearings scheduled for this week.

Behavior experts say such cases illustrate shortfalls in Internet safety campaigns. Such programs fail to address teens at highest risk for potential online exploitation and don’t recognize the wide technology gap between a generation who grew up with the Internet and their parents who did not.

The proliferation of electronic devices with instant information access combined with teenage bodies that develop faster than emotional and cognitive reasoning lays the groundwork for inappropriate social interactions that can easily move from cyber to real world encounters, behavior experts say.

HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT

Many studies suggest teens frequently engage in inappropriate behavior online, but data show most teens don’t take those relationships beyond cyberspace.

However, Noll believes much available data is incomplete. Most of Internet behavior surveys are complied through random telephone questionnaires that rely on teens self-reporting behavior, which frequently doesn’t mirror their actual habits, she said.

“My viewpoint is Internet safety programs aren’t addressing provocative profiles, how do you say ‘no,’ how do you manage sexual discourse online, how do you know when you’re in too far. These topics aren’t well covered,” she said.

Noll is currently conducting an Internet safety study for the National Institutes of Health that involves monitoring the social media and Internet behaviors of a 450 teenage girls between 12 and 15 years old. The study is a follow up to one she published last year in the professional journal Pediatrics.

The first study found teen girls whose Internet habits included viewing sexually explicit content and creating provocative social network profiles were more likely engage in sexually explicit conversations with people they met online. They also are more likely to meet someone in person that they knew from only online contact.

Michael Dougherty

Of the 251 participants in her 2013 study — who were between 14 and 17 years old — 30 percent admitted to such in-person meetings and most didn’t confirm the person’s identity beforehand, according to the study findings. Her research also found that one in 10 teen participants experienced sexual propositions or sexual assaults in offline meetings, and girls with a history of abuse or neglect were more likely to engage in sexually provocative behavior online, thus raising the odds of an in-person meeting.

Behavior experts agree that how people act on electronic devices or the Internet is frequently far different than face-to-face interaction. The Internet provides users a sense of anonymity that allows people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do out of fear of social ramifications.

“The Internet is bringing out extremes in human behavior; where in a pre-Internet era it would be very hard to do what (Carnevale) did,” said Frank Farley, a psychology professor at Temple University. “You’d be known immediately in your community.”

The Internet reduces inhibitions about everything from sex to secrets, Farley said. The result is online activity that once was considered embarrassing or horrific no longer holds its shock value, Farley said.

“The Internet can validate anything. People are doing this, that and the other thing, so I’m going to do it,” he added.

JUDGEMENT LAPSE

A 2012 study involving online interviews with 1,000 U.S. teens between the ages of 13 and 17 found that one-third accessed sexual topics online, 32 percent accessed pornography, and roughly half admitted posting risky comments on social networks including foul language and sexual hookups.

The study, conducted by the security technology company McAfee, found teens don’t think of online friends as dangerous strangers and 12 percent admitted meeting someone in person they only knew through online interactions.

In her research, Noll has found few teens use the strictest privacy settings on their online devices. Large social medial followings are considered a status symbol, which explains why stranger “friend” requests would be accepted among teens, he said.

These judgment lapses are exactly what child predators are looking for when searching for potential victims, behavior experts said. It’s one reason Noll doubts the Facebook friend requests Carnevale allegedly sent to his victims were “random,” as police have described.

“I’ll bet you a million bucks it wasn’t random. I bet he went searching for profiles that indicate this kid was interested in sexual discourse,” she said. “Those are the places where these people stop and say, ‘I’m going to friend this person.’ ”

Once a predator is part of an online friend circle, he or she will make themselves familiar through compliments or shared interests in an effort to lower the teen’s guard.

What online predators rarely do is pose as teens chiefly because it’s unnecessary, according to a 2008 American Psychological Association study, which found most Internet predators reveal their age and intentions with kids online. These adults also take time to develop a teen’s confidence and lower conventional social barriers so they see their relationships as romances or sexual adventures.

Nearly three-quarters of teens who met predators in person had multiple meetings, according to the 2008 study. It also found teens and children who engage in multiple risky online behaviors — such as maintaining friend lists that include strangers or discussing sex online — are much more likely to report receiving online sexual propositions.

Temple University’s Farley suspects alleged predators such as Carnevale and Dougherty are the exception, not the rule.

“I hope it’s not happening elsewhere,” he added. “But we don’t know.”

Much of this behavior is going on under adult noses. Most parents underestimate how much access to the Internet their children have, said psychologist Meredith Weber, who specializes in trauma and sexual abuse.

Three-quarters of the parents surveyed in the 2012 McAfee study answered they were “not very” or “not at all” worried about teens cheating or accessing inappropriate content online. Only 22 percent believed their kids could get into trouble online and one-quarter of parents surveyed said they don’t monitor their child’s online activity.

Monitoring online activity has become more difficult with the prevalence of smartphones providing kids with nearly unfettered and nearly impossible to monitor access to the Internet.

Weber said more recent research suggests teens are becoming savvier about Internet safety and privacy. She believes the key to getting through to kids is not telling them they can’t use social media, but sitting down and teaching them how to avoid online trouble.

Penn State’s Noll agrees parents play a critical role — not by acting as censors — but taking an active role in their kids’ lives on and offline. Parents need to learn about social media and how it works so they can teach their kids social boundaries and empower them to avoid inappropriate interactions or requests.

“It’s just like talking about sex and drugs with your kids in the old days,” Noll added. “It’s the same conversation.”

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

He/She/We: The struggle to understand gender identity

Posted: Monday, August 25, 2014

In his last Instagram post, Riley Matthew Moscatel tried to explain what it was like to live in a body that he felt belonged to someone else.

Riley Moscatel

“My mirror reflected Jessica, my heart and mind say Riley ... I am a prisoner.”

In the long, and at times poetic post, the 17-year-old, who was born a girl and given the name Jessica, expressed frustration with his female body and feelings of hopelessness for the future.

“I am not as strong or influential as everyone thinks. I’ve had enough,” the message read. “Enough of being a walking lie. Being told what gender I am from the outside.”

Not long after posting the message Aug. 18 afternoon, Riley stepped onto the train tracks that can be seen from his family’s Second Avenue home in Croydon and in front of a passing Amtrak train. Riley died instantly, the death ruled a suicide.

The final Instagram post wasn’t the first that Riley left on the social media outlet expressing his gender identity struggle.

“It kills me that I am so alone in this feeling and that my surgical options are poor ... If I could choose if I was born a girl or a guy, I would’ve chosen a guy,” Riley wrote in an earlier post. “The emotions are too much some days. Most TFMs (Transgender Female-to-Male) wouldn’t agree because they’re (sic) journey made them stronger but it really takes a toll on me.”

Riley’s suicide has shaken to the core his friends at Bucks County Technical High School, where he would have been a senior this coming school year and where other openly gay, lesbian and transgender kids attend, according to an administrator.

He came out as a male in English class last year, friends said. Riley’s mom called him “JR,” which stood for Jessica-Riley, they added.

Riley’s struggle with gender identity alone was most likely not the catalyst for his suicide, according to psychology and behavior experts. Suicide is rarely triggered by a single factor, but rather an accumulation of factors the individual perceives as insurmountable, according to Dan Romer, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Individuals who attempt suicide frequently also have at least one diagnosable psychiatric illness, most commonly major depression, a highly treatable disease, Romer and other behavior experts added.

“That is really your smoking gun,” said Jonathan Singer, a professor of social work at Temple University, whose research has included suicide among adults and youth including gay, lesbian and transgender.

Available statistics suggest gay, lesbian and transgender teens and adults are at a higher risk for suicidal behavior and thoughts. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program estimates that more than 50 percent of them attempt suicide at least once by their 20th birthday.

A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades seven through 12 found that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers, according the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. But the CDC noted that more studies are needed to better understand the risks for suicide among transgender youth.

But Singer pointed out the lack of reliable sources for statistics on suicides or attempted suicides among transgender youth. While death certificates will list suicide, they do not list sexual orientation or gender identity, he said.

“There are so few youth suicides relative to the population, it would be almost impossible to measure,” he said.

The closest anyone has come to reliable statistics is a study released earlier this year by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the UCLA Law School’s Williams Institute. It looked at suicidal behavior among adult transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, Singer said.

The study suggests that several minority stressors, such as negative experiences may contribute to elevated prevalence of suicide attempts among transgender people, such as experiences of harassment and family rejection.

Ten years ago Beverly’s son, then in his early 20s, told her that he was living in the wrong body, which was quite a shock for the Bucks County woman.

Riley

“I thought, he will grow out of it. I never even told my husband. It is very difficult. People treat it worse than being gay 30 years ago,” said Beverly, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her child. “I was hoping I’d be long dead and gone if she ever came out.”

For the next decade, her son continued to live as a male trying to fit in, until two years ago when she started the physical transition to female, Beverly said. Recently she decided to change her gender on her driver’s license from male to female.

The journey has been difficult for her new daughter. She has faced discrimination and harassment in the workplace and public when people learned she was born male.

“I talked her off a ledge many a day,” Beverly added. “But she is a wonderful person with a good heart. It is who she is that’s important.”

Riley’s parents have said that their child struggled for years with depression and gender identity, but displayed no outward signs recently of a growing sense of desperation.

“Things were just building up and building up and she just couldn’t take it anymore,” Riley’s mom Kristine Moscatel said Tuesday. “She hid behind her mask. She had a mask for me, my husband, my son, my parents ... Everyone she had a different face for, but they were all happy (faces).”

Friends say Riley — then known as Jessica — came out in ninth grade as bisexual, then a lesbian in 10th grade, but realized he was transgender his junior year.

Riley appeared happy and was popular at school, where staff and students called him Riley Matthew at his request after the transgender announcement, friends said.

Christina Gavagin said her friend was looking forward to senior year: the annual Powder Puff Football game, prom (he picked out a tuxedo) and the senior class trip.

“The only thing he wanted was to graduate and go away to California for college,” said Christina, who is going into her senior year at the tech school.

“I knew Riley when he had down times. I’d go over his house. A lot of times he’d try to make me feel better,” she added.

They are sentiments another close friend Carley Foss repeated. She, like Christina, met Riley in seventh grade. They talked every day, she said. Riley, though increasingly frustrated with his female body, seemed fine when she last saw him last Saturday.

Riley

“He was so nice. So caring. Even if he didn’t really know you or like you much, he’d try to make you happy,” Carley said. “(That’s) just the way he impacted people’s lives. He put a smile on everybody’s face.”

Riley also appeared to be taking steps toward transitioning from female to male, visiting a Philadelphia health clinic that specializes in transgender youth to inquire about hormone treatments and surgery to remove his female breasts, friends said. He wore a binder to flatten his breasts and attended Pennsbury High School’s gay-straight alliance.

Temple’s Singer pointed out that adolescence is all about coming to terms with your identity. But when biological sex isn’t consistent with gender identity — combined with depression and a brain where emotional and cognitive reasoning hasn’t fully matured — it can become overwhelming.

While he applauded the school and others who accepted Riley as a male, Singer said that unconditional social acceptance can also have the opposite effect on an individual.

“This kid was clearly suffering so much inside,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for kids who are depressed to put on a happy face, especially if they feel like they don’t have any reason to feel as bad as they do.”

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

Help is Available for suicidal teens and transgender youth

Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia is one of the few health clinics in the U.S. that offers full scale health care and wellness services for trans-gendered adults and youth, as well as gays and lesbians. 215-563-0652

The Center for Family Intervention Science at Drexel University is currently running a federally funded research project for suicidal adolescents. (http://www.research.chop.edu/programs/cfis/researchprojects.php) For more information on the 16-week program in Attachment Based Family Therapy program, contacted the Center at 215 571-3407

More Information

Symptoms of major clinical depression

Feelings of depression or a loss in interest in things that an individual previously enjoyed every day for most of the day over at least two weeks.

And at least one of these signs:

Change appetite

Change sleep pattern

Less energy

Difficulty with concentration

Feelings of guilt, hopelessness or suicidal thoughts

Source: Dr. Shivkumar Hatti, president of Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING SUICIDE OR FEELING DEPRESSED THERE IS HELP AVAILABLE THROUGH THE NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE AT 1-800-273-8255

Vandals burn American flag grave markers in Bensalem

Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Bensalem police believe there's a connection with recent incidents of vandalism involving the burning of American flags that were plucked from the graves of veterans.

The latest incident — the third in the past few weeks — was discovered Tuesday morning by caretakers at Rosedale Memorial Park, in the 3800 block of Richlieu Road. Overnight, vandals pulled a dozen small American flags out of grave markers in the veterans section of the cemetery and burned them, Bensalem Sgt. William McVey said.

The flags were burned on top of a World War II era artillery cannon display in the cemetery, causing minor damage to the memorial, McVey said.

Caretakers at nearby Roosevelt Memorial Park in the 2700 block of Old Lincoln Highway reported Monday that a dozen small American flags were burned on a cemetery monument there, McVey said.

In both of those incidents, not only flags were removed but so were flag holders and graveside decorations, McVey said. The items were placed in a pile and burned.

The flag-burning vandalism was the second time Roosevelt cemetery was hit in the last month; the caretakers didn't report the first to police, the sergeant added. The newspaper was unsuccessful in immediately reaching a caretaker at Rosedale Memorial Park for comment Tuesday.

As part of the investigation, Bensalem police are checking with other local cemeteries seeking any similar incidents, McVey added.

“This is very unusual,” McVey said about the vandalism.

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

Lower Makefield cops: Alzheimer's patient assaulted by assisted living employee

Posted: Friday, August 15, 2014

A nanny camera captured a now ex-employee of a Lower Makefield assisted living center repeatedly assaulting a 90-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, police said.

The patient’s family had placed the audio/video camera in the woman’s room last year, when she relocated to the Arden Court facility in the 400 block of Stony Hill Road because of concerns about how she was treated at another care center, according to court documents.

Baindu Kromah

In the secretly recorded videos, the woman, who uses a walker and is described as “frail,” is seen and heard crying and pleading for help during several incidents at the residential assisted living unit, police said. The unit serves patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Her adult diaper is ripped off her body in one of the incidents, police said.

The caregiver, Baindu Kromah, 36, of Philadelphia, then pointed at the woman, warned her not to kick before slapping her across the face so hard it was “clearly heard” on the video, according to police.

In another incident caught on camera, Kromah manhandled the woman, police allege.

Kromah grabbed her by her right leg and yanked her around to the side of the bed with so much force that the woman’s legs flung around hitting and knocking her walker to the ground, court documents said.

She then grabbed the elderly woman by the arm and forced her to a standing position before forcing her hands onto the walker and ripping off the woman’s diaper with such force it tore the garment, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Again, the elderly woman is heard crying and begging for help, but Kromah appeared irritated and ignored her pleas, police said.

The elderly resident’s daughter claims that about two months ago she saw a large bruise on the top of her mother’s head, which no one could account for, court documents said. A month ago, she discovered another bruise above her mother’s left eye that no one could explain.

The patient’s granddaughter was visiting on Aug. 10 and saw bruising on her grandmother’s hands and the left side of her face, police said. The granddaughter took the nanny cam home to view the footage.

That is when police say the family’s suspicions of abuse were confirmed and their investigation began.

Kromah, who had worked the overnight shift on weekends at Arden Courts since October, was fired, police said.

Kromah allegedly told police that she was trying to dress the woman but the elderly woman started a fight. Police say that wasn’t the case.

“At no time in the videos is (the woman) observed resisting,” the affidavit shows.

Kromah was arraigned Friday before Morrisville District Judge Michael Burns on two counts of neglect of a care dependent person and four counts of simple assault. She was released on $25,000 unsecured bail.

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia

Bristol cops: Missing Megan's Law offender arrested in Richland Twp.

Posted: Thursday, August 14, 2014

Bucks County’s longest missing convicted sex offender has been apprehended in Upper Bucks nearly four years after he last checked in with Pennsylvania State Police, as required under the state’s Megan’s Law.

Brahin Johnson in 2010

Brahin Johnson, 27, was apprehended Wednesday night by Richland Township police after they responded to a report of a domestic dispute and learned he had been wanted on felony Megan’s Law registration violations since 2011, according to Bristol police Sgt. Joe Moors.

In 2006, Johnson, who is considered a high-risk sex offender, pleaded guilty in Bucks County Court to statutory sexual assault, sexual assault and indecent exposure and was sentenced to two to five years in state prison, according to online court records.

He registered as a sex offender with state police in September 2010, but allegedly never updated his information including his home and work address and social media accounts. As a high-risk offender, Johnson is required to do an in-person update with state police every three months for the rest of his life.

Bristol Borough police filed an arrest warrant charging him with failure to comply with registration of sex offender in January 2011, one month after he missed his quarterly meeting with state police. A police investigation allegedly found that Johnson was not living at the Spruce Street address that he told state police was his home.

When Bristol police spoke to the woman living at the home, she said Johnson never lived there and she had no idea why he would tell police he did, according to a probable cause affidavit. The affidavit does not say when state police notified the borough that Johnson may not have provided accurate information.

Johnson was arraigned before Northampton District Judge William Benz Thursday and sent to Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $50,000 bail. It is unclear if he will face any charges related to the domestic incident that police initially responded to Wednesday.

Further information about Johnson’s arrest was not immediately available.

Active arrest warrants have been filed for six other unaccounted for registered sex offenders last known to be living or working in Bucks County who failed to update information, according to authorities. One has been missing nearly as long as Johnson.

Former Bristol Township resident Luis Vasquez, who was convicted of carnal knowledge of a child in Virginia in 2006, last updated his information with state police in 2011. He is considered a low-risk sex offender and required to check in with state police at least once a year.

Vasquez had been convicted in Virginia in 2008 and 2011 of failing to register as a sex offender, according to court records. The second time he was missing five months before the U.S. Marshals apprehended him in Bristol Township, where Vasquez was living, according to court documents.

Between 2012 and 2013, the Pennsylvania State Police Megan’s Law unit sent two notices for an investigation after Vasquez missed required update appointments. In May 2013, a Bristol Township detective visited Vasquez’s apartment, where he learned he and his mom had moved out a year earlier, court documents said.

In April, former Bristol Township resident Samuel Lovelace, 29, a convicted moderate-risk sex offender who had not updated his registration with state police since 2010, was arrested in Norristown for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl during the time he was listed as non-compliant with Megan’s Law.

Lovelace, who is awaiting trial in Montgomery County, had been unaccounted for nearly three years before Bristol Township filed an arrest warrant for alleged Megan’s Law violations.

Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia