North Strabane police arrest Erie man for unlawful contact with minor
An Erie man was arrested Wednesday by North Strabane Township police after he allegedly engaged in conversations of a sexual nature with a person he believed was a 14-year-old girl. It was actually a township police officer.
Steven Patrick Green, 46, was picked up Wednesday morning by township police in the office of his parole officer in Erie. He is on state parole on an attempted homicide conviction stemming from the shooting of a police officer in 1996.
Officer Gary Scherer was monitoring a teen chatroom last December, posing as a 14-year-old girl from North Strabane, when he was contacted by a person who identified himself as “Steve from Erie.” The man, later identified by police as Green, reportedly acknowledged he was conversing with a 14-year-old girl and initiated a dialogue that was sexual in nature, police said.
Green allegedly asked if the “girl” liked older men, because he was interested in younger girls. He also gave his telephone number, police said. Scherer, in court documents, said Green advised the girl to save the number using a girl’s name so her mother would not find out. The two reportedly exchanged hundreds of text messages over the next several days.
Scherer told District Judge Jay Weller the case was actively investigated for the past year and the investigation required obtaining eight or nine search warrants.
Green was arraigned before Weller on charges of unlawful contact with a minor and criminal use of a communications facility. When Weller told him he was going to Washington County jail on $25,000 bond, he asked the judge to have him placed in a state correctional institution because he did not “feel safe” in county jails. Weller told him he did not have that authority. Green, if he is released, is to have no contact with children or have access to the internet.
Green wounded a police officer in Titusville, Crawford County, in 1996. He was sentenced to 9 to 23 years in prison, and was paroled in 2006.
Green is scheduled for a Dec. 18 preliminary hearing before Weller.