September 25 — With the preliminary hearing set tomorrow for Timothy Raye Heefner, the 64-year-old former Pennsylvania Constable who’s facing more than 700 crimes and sex trafficking, a number of people are digging deeper to wonder why he wasn’t stopped long before now?
The preliminary hearing will be in front of a magistrate judge and the prosecution will have to present enough evidence to show that the crimes occurred.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll explained, “It’s a very low level of evidentiary burden. Typically, in a preliminary hearing, the defendant does not testify. He does not present any evidence. But assuming that the magistrate judge agrees that there’s prima facie evidence that these crimes occurred, the case will then be sent on through the system. He would then be scheduled to appear for what’s called a mandatory arraignment and that’s where he would have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty or no contest. But anyway you cut 700 plus charges, he is looking at undoubtedly decades and decades in prison if he gets convicted of even a small fraction of these charges. So this will be a complicated case. If it does go to trial, this would be the sort of thing that would likely get scheduled for many weeks just because it’s going to take so much time to present all of the evidence and obviously he’s gonna have the right to put on a defense to these things as well.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “There’s much evidence that this guy was abusing people and exploiting women who were drug users and otherwise abused. He was doing it kind of blatantly, language he would use talking to them. It should have been picked up sooner or something should have been done about this sooner. But we’re normalizing this kind of stuff. We’re normalizing sexual abuse and very bizarre behavior. I can’t help but mention the New York magazine put on a trans activist and was very glowing about this person. But when you dig into the past of this person, incredibly troubled, let down by the psychiatric field, had PTSD and was told by a psychologist that she had to endure a violent rape to overcome her PTSD. She herself exploited a woman who had been sexually abused in a foreign country for her own reporting glory. This is a very narcissistic person. This is a person who’s not getting the proper medical or psychological help and yet this person is featured as a trans person you should be admiring. We are destroying our ability to discern what is exploitive and hurtful behavior and what is not.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM contended, “Nothings going to happen with this. It’s only going to get worse because the mainstream media who won’t hold this president accountable for anything is looking for clicks.”
Jansen said, “It’s not just looking for stuff. It’s also taking advantage of people to highlight really horrible behavior and make it normative, not just for clicks, though.”
“They’re looking for views,” Ryan insisted. “They need views.”
Jansen said, “That’s part of it. I’m not saying that’s not part of it. You also have to realize there is this desire to disrupt all norms, and the outcome of that, the consequences of that are people being hurt. That’s my point. All these women that were hurt by this guy and why didn’t people hear his language the way he talked, why wasn’t it addressed sooner?”
Barkdoll said, “You’re referring to the evidence in the police affidavit, these jail phone calls which he had to have known were being recorded. He’s calling into the jail, talking to these women that he thought were in vulnerable positions apparently, that he could exploit. On some of the calls, he makes comments, clearly suggesting or admitting seemingly what he was doing. I think there’s even some where they say, hey, I’m not gonna make this comment for the police. I know they’re listening. Hard to say how or why it took as long as it did. We know the investigation went for over two years. If there are dozens and dozens and dozens of victims, the police probably acted as quickly as they could, but my guess is it was very hard to get their arms around this situation just because of how extensive the case was — over 700 charges. These are local officials. This wasn’t a federal office handling this. So there must have been tremendous time and resources spent on this between Chambersburg Police Department and the district attorney’s office. I can only surmise they arrested him as quickly as they could, but it’s a fair question. Why did it take this long once you heard him on the phone, admitting that he was engaging in this conduct?”
The full story of the charges can be found here: https://tristatealert.com/court-filings-reveal-chambersburg-area-constable-preyed-on-women-in-jail-groomed-and-assaulted-underage-girls/
