A 56-year-old Knox-area man has been ordered to stand trial on charges he raped a 15-year-old girl.
Before last week’s preliminary hearing began, Clarion County assistant district attorney Drew Welsh said the investigation of the case led to additional charges being filed against Thomas Edward Servey.
Thomas Edward Servey
Welsh asked that the criminal complaint be amended to include 10 felony counts each of rape by forcible threat, statutory sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault; 10 misdemeanor counts of indecent assault; one felony count of corruption of minors; and one misdemeanor count each of agricultural vandalism and making terroristic threats.
Clarion state police trooper Rodney Hotchkiss was the only person to testify at the approximately 30-minute long hearing before district judge Amy Long Turk.
Hotchkiss said state police were summoned to Servey’s Beaver Township home by the girl’s mother, who allegedly told police dispatchers she found Servey and the girl in bed together engaged in sex.
The mother told police Servey was in the home with a handgun and had poured gasoline on the porch and was threatening to burn the house down.
“We approached the house with several troopers in cruisers and on foot,” Hotchkiss testified. “He (Servey) saw us and exited the house. He got into a vehicle and started down the driveway.”
Hotchkiss said Servey turned off the driveway and into a “bean field.” Servey allegedly drove across the field, damaging the crop, before stopping and exiting the vehicle, Hotchkiss said.
“He got out and raised his arms,” Hotchkiss said. “We could see a holster with a revolver. He also had a pistol in his pocket along with a knife.”
Hotchkiss said Servey was taken into custody without further incident.
Hotchkiss said he witnessed a forensic interview the next day with the girl conducted by a specialist.
Hotchkiss said the girl told the interviewer sexual incidents with Servey had been “going on since she was young” and she and her mother lived with Servey in Clarion.
The girl allegedly said she was afraid to tell Servey no because he had on multiple occasions threatened to hurt her, her sister and mother and to burn their house down.
The girl allegedly said she felt as if she “had to keep him happy.”
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Erich Spessard, Hotchkiss said he found a gasoline can on the bed in Servey’s bedroom.
“It was pretty bad there were chickens in the house and a goat,” said Hotchkiss.
The ruling
Spessard said he would reserve further argument for later court proceedings, but asked the charge of agricultural vandalism be dismissed, saying the state didn’t offer any evidence of the bean field’s ownership not being Servey.
Welsh conceded Spessard’s point and the charge was dismissed.
Long Turk ordered Servey be held for court on all the other charges.
Welsh asked that Servey’s $50,000 cash bond be increased as the number of some of the charges against Servey had been increased tenfold.
Spessard objected to increased bail, saying the bail amount in place is already “a massive amount” to Servey.
The judge agreed with Spessard and left Servey’s bail at $50,000.
