A former Centre County journalist arrested last winter for sending sexual messages to an FBI agent posing as a teen and to a 14-year-old girl on a youth soccer team he coached has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge in federal court.
Christopher Z. Morelli, 54, of Pleasant Gap was charged by federal prosecutors on Tuesday with one count of attempted enticement of a minor. He simultaneously waived indictment by a grand jury and entered the plea agreement.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to the agreement.
The federal charge stems from an investigation that began in July 2022, when Morelli started communicating through private messages on a social media application with an agent from the FBI Pittsburgh Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force who was posing as a 14-year-old girl, according to a criminal complaint filed in December by Spring Township Police.
Over the course of about 18 months, Morelli made multiple attempts to meet with who he believed was a teenager for sexual activity, engaged in explicit conversations, sent lewd images of himself and attempted to solicit sexual images, police wrote.
The communications continued until December 2023, when he again suggested they meet up near State College, according to the complaint.
The FBI contacted Spring Township police to assist in the investigation in September 2023, and a township detective arrested Morelli on Dec. 20 on felony charges of unlawful contact with a minor – sexual offenses and criminal use of a communication facility.
After he posted $250,000 bail, he was arrested again on Jan. 5 on charges accusing him of sending sexual messages to a 14-year-old girl who was on a Bellefonte area youth soccer team he coached in 2011.
A woman came forward with the allegations after reading reports about Morelli’s initial arrest in December, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Morelli, who was 43 at the time, provided the girl and her friend with alcohol while they went swimming at his house in September 2011 when no one else was home, police wrote. The following month, he sent her messages through Facebook Messenger first asking about her sexual experience, then discussing her breasts and describing sexual acts he would do with her, according to the affidavit.
During the conversation he confirmed the girl’s age, according to message transcripts. The girl stopped communicating with him “after the conversations become even more inappropriate,” police wrote.
Morelli was denied bail after being charged in that case with felony counts of criminal solicitation of statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors. He has been incarcerated at the Centre County Correctional Facility since then.
After Morelli waived his preliminary hearings in January, District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said his office was “expecting federal charges” to be filed against Morelli. A Centre County judge granted three continuances in the case prior to Morelli being charged in federal court.
It was not immediately clear if the second case would proceed in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas.
Morelli was a longtime area journalist who most recently worked at the Centre County Gazette prior to his arrest in December.
