More documents have been unsealed in the 2005 indecent assault case involving Boal Mansion Museum CEO and Harris Township Supervisor Christopher Lee and two minors.
Lee currently faces similar charges of assault and harassment of a minor in federal court.
Centre County President Judge Thomas Kistler singed a court order on Dec. 17 formally unsealing all records in the 2005 case, including the criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause that led to Lee’s arrest.
According to the newly unsealed affidavit of probable cause from September 2005, Lee was arrested for allegedly inappropriately fondling two underage boys, ages eight and ten. While staying the night at the Boal Mansion in Boalsburg in June 2005, the older boy slept in the same bed as Lee while the younger boy slept with his mother in a different room. Lee reportedly tried to convince the younger boy to remove his pajamas before putting his hands into the child’s pants and touching his genitals while he slept.
When the ten year old woke up to Lee allegedly fondling him, he excused himself from the room and woke his mother. “I think Chris is one of those child abusers,” he told his mother, according to court documents. While the boy was explaining what had happened, Lee reportedly entered the room and joined the family in bed.
The ten year old would reportedly later tell police that Lee would often hold him down and tickle him “so hard it hurt.” The boy also reportedly recalled an occasion in which Lee had rubbed his back and commented on the softness of his skin, and another time that the he had been wrestling with Lee when he put his fingers in the boy’s mouth. The eight year old also told police that Lee had tried on different occasions to put his hand down his pants.
Lee was released on $5,000 bail and the condition that he could not contact the mother or her children.
Kistler says that, as a judge, he is not permitted to speak to the specifics of the case, but says that sealing criminal records is uncommon.
“Imagine if you could got out and commit a crime, and your lawyer could have your record sealed when everything was done,” Kistler says. “If criminals can ask to have their records sealed, they can go out and get 25 first offenses for the same crime. In general, there isn’t a provision in the rules for sealing a criminal case.”
Instead of being convicted, Lee entered Pennsylvania’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, which focuses on “treatment and rehabilitation rather than punishment” for an alleged crime that is “relatively minor and does not involve a serious breach of the public trust,” according to the Pennsylvania Code. Lee’s records were partially expunged in 2009, after he completed the program.
Lee now faces new federal felony charges of bringing foreign minors into the country with the intent to molest and sexually harasses them. He was arrested in October after an investigation by the State College Police Department and the FBI. His trial is scheduled to begin on February 30, 2015.
Judge Bradley Lunsford, who presided over the 2005 case, says he can not speak to any specifics of the case, but explains that ARD recommendations are made by the district attorney and the defense attorney involved in a case. He also says that there are certain crimes that can not be expunged from a record as matter of law.
There are three orders in the case responding to a request for expungement. Two of the orders, both from 2008, state that some of the charges from Lee’s case can be expunged, while the indecent assault charges can not be removed from his record. The charges that were eligible for removal from Lee’s record are edited out of these two orders.
A 2009 order, signed by Lunsford, grants partial expungement of Lee’s record in accordance with an agreement between then-Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira and defense attorney Joseph Amendola.
Both Madeira and Amendola have not returned requests for comment.
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