Man sentenced to state prison for unlawful contact with a minor

A Carbon County man who texted naked images to a minor was sentenced to a state prison term on Friday.

Jordan M. Beggan, 27, of Bowmanstown, and formerly of Palmerton, was sentenced by President Judge Roger N. Nanovic II to serve 22 to 72 months in a state correctional institution on an unlawful contact count and six to 12 months for disseminating sexual materials to a minor. Terms will run concurrently.

The prison term will be followed by five years probation.

In a plea agreement with the state Attorney General’s office, who prosecuted the case, counts of criminal use of a communication facility and corruption of minors were dropped.

Illegal contact

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by Daniel Block, a special agent with the Bureau of Special Investigations of the AG office and currently assigned to the Child Predator Section, and Kathleen Fallon, a special agent for the AG’s Child Predator Section of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force:

On Oct. 4, 2017, Block and Fallon were contacted by Detective Kevin Buck of the Palmerton police, who was investigating a case in which Beggan sent naked images to the victim, a 16-year-old teen in April 2017.

Buck said he was contacted by the victim’s parents in April 2017 and that they told him their son had been messaging with a man on Snapchat and that the chats became sexual in nature.

Buck said they gave him all of their son’s Snapchats with Beggan, including the naked image.

They reviewed the evidence/chats and saw Beggan communicating with the victim’s Snapchat name.

At one point Beggan could be seen in an image (in the reflection of a mirror without a shirt on) stating that he was getting ready for work. He sent an image of himself and asked the teen to reciprocate.

Beggan told police he met the teen at the fire station and they exchanged phone numbers.

He said they had been texting for a couple of months and eventually they exchanged Snapchat names.

Attorney John J. Waldron said his client was determined not to be a sexually violent predator by the state sexual offenders assessment board.

He said Beggan had volunteered as a firefighter and in his church.

Beggan submitted a letter he had written to Nanovic. Waldron said his client was “too nervous” to read it himself.

Beggan’s pastor also spoke on his behalf.

Nanovic noted numerous letters of support he received for Beggan and that he had read them all.

Beggan did say, “I know what I did was wrong.”

Deputy Attorney General Angela Lynn Raver, asked the court to impose a sentence at the top of the standard range of sentencing guidelines. The standard range was 22 to 36 months up to a maximum of 20 years.

Nanovic told Beggan, “Everything I read, the letters, presentence report, tell me you’re basically a good person.”

Calling it a difficult case, Nanovic noted that Beggan told the adult probation officer who prepared the presentence report that it was a joke. Nanovic said, “I take this as a very serious case.”

He said he would impose a sentence at the low end of sentencing guidelines based on all he read and the facts of the case. He said the sentence he imposed was “a serious one.”

Under the provisions of Megan’s Law, Beggan must register as a sexual offender for the next 25 years. He was also ordered to have no contact with the victim or his family, no unsupervised contact with minors, submit to a sexual offenders evaluation, no unsupervised access to the internet, get a mental health evaluation, supply a DNA sample, and pay court costs of about $1,000.

Beggan, an inmate in the county prison since his arrest because he was unable to post $250,000 straight cash bail, was given credit for 347 days spent in jail to date on the charges.

Pending charges

Beggan also is facing charges in Schuylkill County.

Beggan has been charged with giving beer to and inappropriately touching a teenage student at a private school in Tamaqua where he worked. He is charged with school — intercourse/sexual contact with a student, rated a felony 3, corruption of a minor, furnishing alcohol to a minor and indecent assault, all misdemeanors. The AG office is also prosecuting that case.