A Baltimore man formerly of State College has been charged with multiple felonies stemming from an alleged sexual assault in May 2016 in College Township.
The alleged victim reported to Pennsylvania State Police that on two occasions she was being driven home from the PA Treatment and Health (PATH) program in State College when the van driver, identified as Justin S. Jackson, 24, told her to go to the back of the van and had sex with her, according to a criminal complaint.
The girl had been attending an after-school program at PATH, the Centre County District Attorney’s office said in a release.
Police say they spoke with PATH’s program director who told them that van drivers had been given specific instructions that the girl was the first student to be dropped off. On May 6 and May 9, however, she was the last student to be dropped off.
On May 9, the van left PATH at 7:07 p.m. and at 8:42 p.m. the director was alerted that the girl still had not returned home, police said. The director reportedly made several attempts to contact Jackson before he replied by text message, saying that he had taken a wrong exit which put him 15 minutes behind and that he stopped to get some food on the way.
According to the complaint, Jackson told the director he had switched routes with the other driver that day because he needed to pick up a form from Med Express in State College before 9 p.m. He allegedly then said that he took the girl with him to Med Express then took her home. He was reportedly suspended until further notice on May 10 for going off route with a student.
The girl was interviewed at the Children’s Advocacy Center on May 12. She reportedly told the interviewer that she would normally be dropped off by 7:30 p.m. and that she told Jackson to drop her off first but he did not. She said that after the other students were dropped off, Jackson drove to what was later identified as a parking lot behind an abandoned building off of Struble Road in College Township.
There, the girl allegedly said, Jackson told her to go to the back of the van and ‘He started touching me in the wrong places. He was taking my clothes off.’ He allegedly began having sex with her and she reportedly told him to stop. According to the complaint, he told her he would not stop until someone called his cell phone. She reportedly said he stopped around 9 p.m. after the supervisor called and then he took her home. Jackson allegedly told the girl ‘to say we went to McDonald’s to get something to eat. He told me to make things up.’
She reportedly told the interviewer that Jackson sexually assaulted her in the same place the previous Friday, May 6. On that day, he returned her home at about 8 p.m. when her parents were not at home, according to the complaint.
Jackson is charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of aggravated indecent assault, two counts of institutional sexual assault of a minor, once count of corruption of a minor and nine counts of unlawful contact with a minor, all felonies. He is also charged with two misdemeanor counts of indecent assault.
He was arraigned before District Judge Ronald Horner and posted bail, which was set at 10 percent of $50,000.
The district attorney’s office had requested that Jackson be remanded to county jail and will seek an increase in bail in Centre County Court, according to the release from the DA’s office.
