Selinsgrove man will serve up to 10 years for sexually assaulting child
May 21—MIDDLEBURG — Admitted child sex abuser Robert C. Swaggerty will spend up to 10 years in prison following his guilty plea in Snyder County Court.
Before President Judge Lori R. Hackenberg imposed the 14-month-to-10-year state prison term Tuesday morning, Swaggerty, 47, of Selinsgrove, heard from his young victim and her parents, none of whom will be identified to protect the child's identity.
"You took my childhood away from me," the victim, now 16, wrote in a statement that was read aloud to the court by victim-witness coordinator Lacy Kreider. "You hurt me ... and taught me to lie. You tried to make everyone feel I was a bad person."
She also told Swaggerty that she forgave him, but let the judge know she still doesn't feel safe.
"I see the world differently," she wrote.
Swaggerty was in the middle of a jury trial last month on charges he sexually abused the girl, beginning when she was 10 and he moved into her family's Selinsgrove home after spending a decade as a missionary in India.
The abuse continued when Swaggerty's wife and two young sons moved from India to Selinsgrove and the family of four moved into their own home.
Swaggerty pleaded guilty to felony statutory sexual assault before the trial was finished after his wife, Viko Swaggerty, and Danielle Foss, both of Selinsgrove, were caught on video surveillance in the courthouse trying to listen to trial testimony despite being sequestered defense witnesses who were not permitted to hear courtroom testimony.
The women opted not to testify out-of-earshot of the jury about their actions at the risk of being jailed for violating the sequestration order and were dismissed as defense witnesses, prompting Robert Swaggerty to plead guilty.
In an emotional and lengthy statement made at Tuesday's sentencing hearing, the victim's mother held back tears as she described the trauma of Swaggerty's actions.
"Little did we know that we opened our home to a sexual predator" who almost immediately began preying on her prepubescent daughter, she said. "Bob used force and threatened my daughter. She lived with so much fear."
In the years after the girl reported the sexual assaults, the mother said, Swaggerty denied the abuse and convinced church leaders to take his side.
"Bob jeered, sneered and mocked my child as she spiraled into deep pain," the woman told the court, describing Swaggerty as "mean and deeply cruel. He recruited people from the church — our church" who shunned her daughter in the wake of the accusations. "I thought pastors were supposed to protect the vulnerable, the children. They're required by law to report sex abuse."
Referring to Foss, the pastor's wife who was prepared to testify on Swaggerty's behalf at the trial, the woman said, "Bob knew what he had done but he was sitting and waiting for the pastor's wife to soil this court."
Before imposing the prison sentence, Hackenberg addressed Swaggerty's "profound violation of trust" and the "psychological and emotional scars inflicted" on the victim and her family.
