Guilty plea in Delaware County online child-sex solicitation
Steven Devlin, a former vice provost at Lehigh University, was looking for a good time last summer when he tried to set up a four-way sex romp with a Delaware County woman and her two young girls.
Steven Devlin, a former vice provost at Lehigh University, was looking for a good time last summer when he tried to set up a four-way sex romp with a Delaware County woman and her two young girls.
Now he's looking at jail time after pleading guilty yesterday to attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Authorities say Devlin, 50, also a former University of Pennsylvania administrator, used his Lehigh University office computer to send instant messages to a person he believed to be a 32-year-old mother of two girls, ages 7 and 9.
"Hi, we are in Delco also!!!" was how Devlin, using the screen name "Phillyguy5," introduced himself last May, according to a transcript. "We need to set a date to party," Devlin wrote the following month, telling the woman - in graphic detail - how he wanted to have intercourse with her 9-year-old and use sex toys on her 7-year-old.
The father of two from Haverford was actually communicating with Detective Lisa Carroll, a member of the county's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which busts pedophiles looking to turn their chat-room fantasies into reality.
Devlin simultaneously tried to entice another "mother" into a similar meeting with girls he believed to be ages 11 and 14, authorities said. That woman was also an undercover detective from the task force, which is one of 59 nationwide and handles 40 to 50 new investigations each month.
An educator, who previously served as associate director of Penn's Office of Institutional Research and Analysis, Devlin resigned as Lehigh's vice provost for institutional research after he was arrested in July in a Kohl's parking lot, where police say he had planned to meet the 32-year-old mom and her kids for a tryst at their home.
"We need to trust each other," Devlin wrote to Carroll a few hours before they met, "but I read about guys trapped by cops every day."
Deputy District Attorney Michael Galantino said he would seek a three- to six-year prison term at Devlin's sentencing in August. Devlin also must register as a Megan's Law sex offender and submit a DNA sample to authorities.
"Every time we arrest a defendant and prosecute them and get a jail sentence, that makes the Internet just a little bit safer," Galantino said.
Defense attorney Arthur Donato Jr. said he would ask Judge Patricia Jenkins for a shorter sentence. *
