gavel.jpg
(File)
A former job coach for the Berks County Intermediate Unit will be staying behind bars on his convictions for molesting an intellectually disabled student.
The state Superior Court denied Brian Skipper's appeal this week, even though it agreed with one of his claims that a county judge made an error during his March 2012 trial.
Skipper, 39, is serving a 1 1/12- to 10-year sentence in the state prison at Mercer on indecent assault convictions.
He originally was charged with molesting three intellectually disabled students. The charges involving one student were dismissed, however, and the jury acquitted Skipper of molesting one of the other pupils.
His convictions were on charges lodged in 2010 that he had repeatedly fondled an 18-year-old boy he was supervising in the intermediate unit's Preparation for Adult Life vocational training program. The teen accused Skipper of massaging his nipples and grabbing his genitals.
The teen testified that on one occasion, Skipper fondled him after ordering him to go into a bathroom and open his pants.
In his appeal, Skipper argued that county Judge Linda K.M. Ludgate improperly allowed hearsay testimony to be introduced during his trial under the state Tender Years Act, which allows such testimony when crime victims are 12 or younger.
That decision wrongly extended the Tender Years Act to cases involving intellectually disabled people who are older than 12, an expansion that was never specified by the state Legislature, Skipper contended.
According to court testimony, the teen in Skipper's case had the mental capacity of a 12- or 13-year-old.
Superior Court Judge Christine L. Donohue agreed in her court's opinion on Skipper's appeal that Ludgate shouldn't have invoked the Tender Years Act in allowing the hearsay testimony. However, Donohue noted that such testimony was still admissible because it promptly caused others to report the abuse to authorities.
Donohue also rejected Skipper's claim that the teen shouldn't have been allowed to testify against him because his accuser hears voices that tell him to do bad things. A psychiatric expert called by prosecutors concluded that the teen was competent to testify, the state judge noted.
Other claims by Skipper that he wasn't allowed to question witnesses who would have undermined the teen's credibility, that Ludgate showed "a clear display of hostility" toward him, and that the evidence didn't warrant his conviction were rejected by the state court as well.
Besides sending him to prison, Ludgate labeled Skipper as a sexually violent predator under Megan's Law, meaning he will have to register with police for life and they will tell his neighbors about his convictions.