How Could You? Hall of Shame-Warren Earl Yerger Sr., Leslie Anne Yerger and Deborah Anne Keeley UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Douglassville, Pennsylvania, Warren Earl Yerger Sr.,51, his wife Leslie Anne Yerger, 34 and Warren’s former girlfriend Deborah Ann Keeley, 47, “were charged with more than 1,000 felony counts of sex offenses against minors after four of their victims came forward to Pennsylvania State police. All three “are being held in Chester County Prison after they failed to post bail following their arraignments earlier this week, according to court papers.

The four victims — three females and one male — moved with Warren Yerger and his partners as they relocated to different homes in Montgomery, Berks, Chester and Mckean counties over a 23-year period.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, the three alleged offenders “were responsible for the care, protection and support” of the four young victims between 1989 and 2012. [It is currently unknown if they are unofficial guardians, guardians, foster parents or adoptive parents.]

In a press release, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said, “These defendants essentially tortured children in their care for years. They degraded these victims in every way possible. As a child, where can you turn when the people who are supposed to be caring for you are sexually assaulting you? We will make sure that justice is done for the victims and to the defendants.”

In a statement to Pennsylvania State Police, the male victim, and one female victim, said the alleged sexual abuse from Warren Yerger began in 1989, when the victims were 5 and 3 years old, respectively, while Yerger was living on Columbia Avenue in Phoenixville.

The male victim told police that Warren Yerger touched him inappropriately until 1993, when the victim was 8. During that period, Yerger broke the victim’s nose after kicking him in the face in order to, “beat the evil out of him,” police said.

Warren Yerger allegedly told the mother of these two victims that he was “doing nightly prayers with the victims, but instead he would lock the door and sexually assault both children,” while the accused lived on Hamilton Run Road in Port Allegheny in 1990, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

“Defendant Warren Yerger has been charged with every legally appropriate charge for sexually abusing these children,” Hogan said. “There is no charge that exists for it, but he ought to be charged with murdering the childhood of these victims.”

When the male victim was 5, Warren Yerger allegedly forced him and the 3-year-old female victim to engage in sexual intercourse with each other while living in Mckean County, police said.

A female victim told police that while living on Saylor’s Mill Road in East Coventry in 1995, Warren Yerger allegedly touched her inappropriately when she was 4, police said.

According to police, Yerger began dating Keeley in 1995, and moved to Levengood Road in Upper Pottsgrove in 1996.

Two of the victims told police they were allegedly forced to perform sexual acts on both Yerger and Keeley, while in their care.

Police said that when Yerger and Keeley separated, the alleged abuse from Keeley toward the two victims stopped.

Charges for all three include child endangerment, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and corruption of minors. Warren Yerger was charged with 884 felony counts of various charges including incest, rape of a child and conspiracy to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse to a child, according to court documents.

Leslie Yerger and Keeley’s next court appearances are scheduled for July 18 at 9 a.m. Warren Yerger is scheduled to appear in court on July 25 at 10 a.m.”

UPDATED: 3 from Berks charged with rape of children

[The Mercury 7/12/13 by Caroline Sweeney]

“According to the allegations, the children, as young as 3 years old, were raped, forced to perform sex acts on adults and each other, as well as forced participation when the suspects were having sex. In addition, authorities say naked pictures were taken of the children and distributed.

The victims were not just sexually abused. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the children were also subjected to punching and kicking.

The Prosecutor’s Office also claims that Warren Yerger would sometimes tell people he was saying nightly prayers with two of the victims. The sexual assaults would then occur in the children’s locked bedrooms. Yerger allegedly told one victim that he “would beat the evil out of him [the victim].”

Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan stated, “These defendants essentially tortured children in their care for years. They degraded these victims in every way possible.”

Warren Earl Yerger, Leslie Yerger, and Deborah Keeley are charged with rape, aggravated indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, conspiracy, and related charges. Warren Yerger faces over 500 counts of criminal conduct.”

Husband, wife, girlfriend charged with child sex assault

[6ABC 7/12/13]

“Leslie Anne Yerger, 34, of Douglassville, was also charged with multiple counts of rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors and other charges, police said.  She, police said, committed the crimes against two of the children.

Keeley, 46, of Birdsboro, is accused of hurting two of the children. She was charged with involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors and other offenses, police said.”

Warren Yerger Sr. sexually abused children over 23-year span, police say

[WFMZ 7/12/13 by Jamie Peter]

Warren is a “Berks Co. security guard.” “Leslie Yerger…[is] a company payroll supervisor; and Deborah Keeley… a secretary at a doctor’s office.”

“According to District Attorney Tom Hogan, Yerger’s assaults included anal rape, forced oral sex and digital penetration.”

[The Mercury News 3/6/14 by Michael P. Rellahan]

“Eight months after being arrested and charged with sexually assaulting children, a Berks County woman has pleaded guilty. Leslie Yerger allowed her husband to sexually assault four children over the course of 23 years, and she also participated in some of the acts, investigators said. Yerger’s neighbors in Union Township, however, knew her as another friendly face.

“One time I met her out here,” said one of Yerger’s neighbor. “I said, ‘Where do you live at?’ She said right down behind me. And then I said, ‘What is the matter?’ She said her dog ran away, and I tried to help her find it. Then she got the dog and she went home.” But, the neighbors were shocked to hear she and her husband, Warren Yerger Sr., allegedly abused children in their care. Leslie Yerger pleaded guilty in Chester County court to two counts each of endangering the welfare of children, corruption of a minor, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and aggravated indecent assault, as well as eight counts of conspiracy. “It was so horrible, and she seemed like a nice lady when I met her out here. Oh my gosh,” said a neighbor.

Investigators said Warren Yerger Sr. abused three girls and one boy over the span of 23 years, beginning in 1989, sometimes on a weekly basis. Police said Yerger would tell his wife, or his onetime girlfriend, Deborah Keeley, that he was taking two of the children upstairs to say prayers with them, but police said he would instead lock the door and sexually assault them. Warren Yerger is facing more than 500 criminal charges, including rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and corruption of minors. Police said Leslie Yerger and Deborah Keeley participated in some of the acts. As a mother and grandmother, one neighbor said it is especially hard hearing about the alleged abuse months later. “I could not believe it. I just can’t understand how she can do that to her kids,” she said. A sentencing date for Leslie Yerger has not been scheduled.”

Leslie Yerger admits to role in Repeated sexual abuse of children [WFMZ 3/7/14 by Jennifer Joas]

Update 4:”The jury hearing the trial of a former Phoenixville man accused of sexually abusing four children over a period to more than two decades is expected to hear closing arguments Monday and begin deliberations in the case that featured graphic testimony from four of the alleged victims.

 

 

Warren Yerger Sr., 52, who lived in Birdsboro when he was arrested in 2013, faces more than 170 counts of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and related charges. If convicted, he faces the potential of being sentenced to decades in state prison.

 

 

The seven men and five women on the jury panel in Chester County Common Pleas Judge William Mahon’s courtroom heard five days of testimony last week, including each of the three women and one man who say they were sexually abused by Yeager from the time they were very young.

 

 

They said Yerger not only engaged in abusing them as children both sexually and physically, but also orchestrated abuse of two of the children at the hands of his former girlfriend and his current wife, who took the stand against him and confirmed what two of the women said happened.

 

 

The abuse, according to Deputy District Attorney Deborah Ryan in her opening statement, took place in four counties as Yerger moved from place to place, in Chester, Berks, McLean, and Montgomery counties.

 

 

Defense attorney Lawrence Harmelin, representing Yerger, has contended that the stories of abuse were fabricated by the victims because of grudges or bias they harbored against him.

 

 

The alleged victims, who range in age now from 23 to 29, took the stand and testified how Yerger’s abuse started slowly and escalated over the years. The oldest of the witnesses, the only male of the group, said Yerger began his abuse by fondling him when he was no more than five years old, when he lived in Phoenixville.

 

 

Another of the witnesses, a 27-year-old who now lives outside Chester County and works in sales and marketing, testified that when she lived in Phoenixville in the early 1990s, Yerger would come into her room and molest her. She said when the family moved to Port Allegheny in McLean County, Yerger’s abuse became more frequent and more invasive, she said.

 

 

She said that the abuse lasted for several years, but she did not discuss it with anyone or inform police about it. “I was afraid,” she said. Even when she and the other alleged victims came forward and spoke with state police, it took a long time for her to discuss the details of what had happened, she told Ryan in her testimony on Tuesday.

 

 

“I tried to bury it,” she said.

 

 

All four of the alleged victims now have children. The women told the jury that they are at times afraid to change their babies’ diapers or clean them because of the memories of what they were made to do by Yerger when they were young.

 

 

Yerger took the stand in his own defense on Friday and testified for about 2½ hour. He denied ever abusing the children.

 

 

His wife, Leslie Yerger, 45, pleaded guilty to charges involving the abuse earlier this year and told the jury Friday that the defendant made her join in the sexual abuse on frequent occasions. She lashed out at Yerger during one stretch of her testimony, angrily blaming him for her arrest and imprisonment. They were married in 2001, after his girlfriend, Deborah Keeley, with whom he lived from 1996 to 2001, moved out of their home in Mont Clare.

 

 

Both women have pleaded guilty to the charges against them, and will be sentenced separately. Neither have any agreement with the prosecution as to what their sentences should be.”

Closing arguments set in child sex abuse trial of ex-Phoenixville man[The Mercury News 12/21/14 by Michael P. Rellahan]

“A Court of Common Pleas jury on Monday found a former Phoenixville man guilty of a decades-long series of sex abuse crimes against four young children, crimes the prosecution said “no human should ever know.”

 

 

The panel in Judge William P. Mahon’s courtroom deliberated just over 2½ hours before returning their verdict on the large majority of the more than 170 criminal counts against Warren Yerger Sr., finding that he had raped, sodomized, molested, and abused the children over a period of more than 20 years.

 

 

The verdict took more than 15 minutes to read because of the multitude of charges against Yerger, who had denied any abuse whatsoever. A handful of charges were dismissed by the jury that listened to five full days of testimony in the case.

 

 

The prosecution, led by Deputy District Attorney Deborah Ryan, had asserted in closing the trial that Yerger was a “monster,” who groomed and preyed on the children, and that there was overwhelming evidence to convict him.

 

 

“It is finally time to give those victims a voice,” Ryan told the jury in an emotional and forceful 80-minute-long closing argument. “The defendant violated the little bodies of little children … and he needs to be held accountable.”

 

 

There was no immediate reaction in the courtroom when the verdict was read by the court clerk around 5:45 p.m. Yerger was led from the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies, and will be returned to Mahon’s courtroom for sentencing at a future date. Because of the serious nature of the charges against him, he faces the possibility of decades behind bars.

 

 

In their closing arguments, the attorneys on the two opposing sides disagreed about the quality of the evidence against Yerger, but they agreed on one issue: their gratitude to the jurors who heard the case. The descriptions of the sexual violence that the children testified to was horrific, both sides agreed.

 

 

“I believe you all should be sent straight to heaven for having to listen to all of this,” said defense attorney Laurence Harmelin in his closing argument to the panel Monday, referring to the testimonies from the four alleged victims. “It’s upsetting to anyone with a heart.”

 

 

“I, too, want to thank you,” echoed Ryan in her own address to the seven men and five women who decided Yerger’s guilt later in the day. “I know it was very difficult to sit here and listen.”

 

 

Both attorneys said that what Yerger was alleged to have done was “disgusting” — sexually abusing the four children from the time they were infants until they were in their teens, sometimes daily, and in Ryan’s words, in “demeaning” and “humiliating” ways. But the attorneys differed when it came to arguing whether that testimony could be believed as truth, or whether there was a reason for the panel to discount it as manufactured by angry witnesses.

 

 

Yerger, 52, who lived in Berks County at the time of his arrest, faced more than 170 counts of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, and related charges for his alleged molestation of the four children between 1989 and 2012, when one of the victims alerted a college professor to what had happened and police began investigating.

 

 

Yerger, who was a security guard and lived in four counties — Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and McLean — during the time the alleged crimes occurred, took the stand in his own defense on Friday and maintained he had never molested or abused the children, and that they made up their accounts of what he did to repay him for grudges they held against him.

 

 

But Ryan, in her 90-minute summation, asked the jury to consider what any of the children would have stood to gain by accusing Yerger of the abuse. She noted that each had testified that they were reluctant to come forward, that they did not want to testify about what happened, and that they still felt some affection for Yerger.

 

 

“This was not easy for them,” said Ryan, who heads the DA’s Child Abuse Unit, praising them for their courage in coming forward. “It was painful for these victims to come in here and tell you what happened and relive it as best they could.”

 

 

“This was 23 years of abuse,” she said. “Twenty-three years of torture for these kids. This was their routine. This was their life behind closed doors. At nighttime when other children were safely tucked in their beds, they were living a real-life nightmare with that man (Yerger).”

 

 

“He took away their dignity,” she said. “He stole their innocence, and he deprived them of their childhoods.”

 

 

Ryan went through a detailed, and sometimes graphic description of what each of the witnesses said had happened to them. She said Yerger would begin with mild fondling of the children — three girls and a boy, each of them now in their 20s — and escalate it into what became known as “nightly prayers.”

 

 

In addition, Ryan said Yerger included his former girlfriend, Deborah Anne Keeley, and his wife, Leslie Yerger, in the abusive acts, physically punished the alleged victims for minor transgressions and deprived them of food for days at a time so they were forced to eat from a garden or dig through trash. The details, she said, were corroborated by others who had no reason to lie.

 

 

“His depravity knows no bounds,” Ryan said of Yerger.

 

 

But in Yerger’s defense, Harmelin asked the panel to consider several instances of inconsistencies their stories contained, and times when what they said contradicted other witnesses.

 

 

“This was only disgusting and vile and out of this world if it was true,” he said. “What you have to decided is whether it happened. I do not want him convicted of sexual offenses if he didn’t do them.”

 

 

Harmelin said that because there was no physical evidence for the jurors to consider, “This whole case is words, essentially. It is a spitting contest,” with stories that “strain belief.” He pointed to greeting cards that the victims had sent to Yerger over the years, telling them they loved him on his birthday. “If what they said is true, would anybody love him?”

 

 

“It doesn’t add up,” Harmelin said. “It doesn’t make sense. I believe we have shown a reasonable doubt, and that the prosecution has not proven their case.”

 

 

Leslie Yerger, who testified against her husband, will be sentenced at a later date, as will Keeley, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to the massive number of charges against her, but did not agree to testify.”

Former Phoenixville man guilty in child sex abuse case[Delco Times 12/22/14 by Michael P. Rellahan]

Update 5:“Calling it “one of the most egregious and horrific cases of child sexual abuse ever seen in Chester County,” a Pa. judge Wednesday handed down sentence to match: A total term of 339 to 690 years in a state prison for convicted sexual predator Warren Earl Yerger Sr., formerly of Phoenixville, Pa.

The Pottstown Mercury reports that Chester County Court Judge William P. Mahon was legally barred from imposing a full sentence of life in prison because of the nature of the charges.

But with Yerger, 52, convicted in December of 155 counts of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children, and conspiracy, the consecutive sentences handed down by the judge will more than keep Yerger in state prison for the rest of his natural life.

The Pottstown Mercury wrote that it is believed to be the longest sentence ever handed down in a criminal case in the county, adding:

“Each of these charges is horrific,” the judge said before imposing his sentence, a process that took the better part of half an hour because of the number of counts he had to work through. “What I was looking for, Mr. Yerger, was for you to accept responsibility. You have not. But the jury has imposed responsibility on you.”

Three of the victims, the women, now all in their 20s with families of their own, presented lengthy statements detailing how the offenses Yerger committed against them had impacted their lives. And each, in their own way, offered forgiveness for the man they had at some point looked up to in their childhood but who betrayed them.”

Pa. man gets 690 years for ‘horrific’ child sex abuse [The Patriot News 6/19/15 by John Luciew]

Update 6: “The wife of the serial child molester serving the longest prison term in Chester County history has been sentenced to state prison for her role in aiding, and participating in, his crimes against two young women.

Judge William P. Mahon on Thursday sentenced 36-year-old Leslie Yerger to seven to 16 years behind bars after she apologized for the pain she had caused the two victims, but contended she suffered as well at the hands of her husband, Warren Yerger, who abused her as well.

“I hope that one day I will be whole again and believe that with God’s love and counseling and the ability to love myself again and to know that I am beautiful inside and out, I will,” Leslie Yerger wrote in a three page letter to the judge that he read before sentencing her. “I hope more importantly that the girls will now and forever be free of his evil.”

Yerger’s sentence fell between the time that the prosecution had asked for, eight to 16 years in state prison, and what her defense attorney, Steve Jarmon of Malvern, recommended Mahon impose, that being four to eight years. She had pleaded guilty earlier to multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, conspiracy, and related charges.

Both sides said afterwards that Mahon’s sentence was fair.

“We are satisfied with the result,” said Assistant District Attorney Anthony Rock, who handled Leslie Yerger’s sentencing. “We think it is appropriate.”

“Under the circumstances, it was a fair sentence,” said Jarmon. “I feel the judge definitely listened to both sides, took everything we asked him to under advisement.”

The sentence fell below that which Mahon had imposed on another women who had been part of Warren Yerger’s sexual abuse of children, Deborah Ann Keeley. Mahon sent her to state prison for a term of 22 to 44 years, after she pleaded guilty but refused to cooperate with the prosecution by testifying against her former boyfriend, as Leslie Yerger did at his trial in December.

It pales, however, in comparison to the sentence that Mahon handed down against Warren Yerger, who was found guilty of what the prosecutor at his trial, Deputy District Attorney Deborah Ryan, of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit, called “one of the worst criminal cases in Chester County.” Mahon sentenced him to a prison term of 339 to 690 years in state prison.

According to testimony at his trial, Warren Yerger sexually abused four young children, a brother and sister and two other girls, over a period of years between 1989 and 2012. In that 23-year period Warren Yerger moved eight times to four different counties in the state, living in Phoenixville, Spring City, Lower Pottsgrove, and elsewhere. He began abusing the young boy when he lived in Chester County when the victim was 4 years old, and continued on an almost daily basis until the child was 8 and his sister 6 years old.

The sexual abuse of the youngest girl in the Leslie Yerger case began in 1995 when Warren Yerger returned to the county after having lived in McLean County in north central Pennsylvania. She was 4 or 5 years old at the time. The abuse of that girl and the other, two years older, lasted until 2012.

Keeley abused the girls as well when they were young, and Yerger also made Leslie Yerger join in the abuse. The three were arrested in July 2013 when the Yergers were living in Birdsboro, Berks County, and Keeley was living in Douglassville, Berks County. The case came to light when one of the victims, who was in court in Thursday for Leslie Yerger’s sentencing, confided to a teacher that she had been molested by Warren Yerger from the time she was 5 until she was 20.

Ultimately, state police Trooper Heather Heffner, who led the investigation into the crimes, was able to track down the three other victims. All four testified against Warren Yerger at his trial, describing in graphic and horrific detail what he had done to them as children. In the instances involving Leslie Yerger, Warren Yerger would make the two girls come to his bedroom, where he was sexually assault them. Leslie Yerger testified that she would either assist Warren Yerger in his assaults, or at times assault the girls herself. The abuse took place in Chester, Montgomery, and Berks counties.

Leslie Yerger “participated in one of the most egregious and horrifying cases of child sexual abuse ever seen in Chester County,” said Rock, who was co-counsel in the case with Ryan, in his sentencing memorandum, “Her inaction and participation in these activities made the vocalization possible and represented only the latest incarnation of sexual abuse perpetrated by Warren Yerger over a total of 23 years.”

Although Rock acknowledged that Leslie Yerger’s cooperation had been useful in gaining a conviction against her husband, who took the stand to declare that he was innocent of all the charges against him, he nevertheless had harsh words for her actions involving the children.

Her “behavior is indefensible,” Rock wrote. “There is no rational excuse for (her) to have engaged in these heinous acts against young children. She was not forced to do anything. She could have left. She could have resisted. She could have said no. She could have called for help. Instead, she participated in the unthinkable abuse of long children and allowed (Warren) Yerger to continue his brutal victimizations for decades more.”

Although Jarmon, in his presentation to the judge, agreed with Rock that his client “had a choice” in whether to engage in the abuse with her husband, he cited an evaluation by psychologist Elliot Atkins that Leslie Yerger suffered from Battered Wife Syndrome and was under the control of Warren Yerger. “It is clear that the choice to leave or report him was not as easy as one not in her position would presume.”

Leslie Yerger was given time credit for the months she has spent in county prison awaiting trial, so that she will have to serve only five more years before being eligible for parole. After her release, she will serve 10 years of consecutive probation.

In her letter, she told Mahon how she regretted not being able to stop the abuse of the girls from happening, but blamed Warren Yerger for keeping her under his thumb. “If I had been stronger, the girls would have been hurt less. I’m sorry for that and the pain I did cause them. He was always one controlling step ahead of me.

Of the victims, she wrote, “I want them to realize that (Warren Yerger’s) evil world ad work on them is now ended. They are free to be themselves and for them, I know it is not too late.””

Wife of molester sentenced in abuse case [Daily Local 10/17/15 by Michael Rellahan]