A Schuylkill County judge said a Reading man’s behavior in an online sexting sting was “extremely troubling” just before sentencing him to 8-20 years in state prison on Wednesday.
Ven Jean, 32, was convicted on charges of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years of age as well as unlawful contact with a minor back in March.
In 2024, Jean was arrested after he drove from Reading to Mahanoy City to have sex with someone he believed to be a 15-year-old girl. He’d exchanged explicit messages over the Kik app and then via SMS (text messaging) prior to coming to Schuylkill County.
When Jean arrived in Mahanoy City on Sept. 22, 2024, he learned that the 15-year-old girl he’d been messaging was actually Borough Police Chief Thomas Rentschler, who had organized a sting by posing as an underage girl online.
At his sentencing hearing on Wednesday, Schuylkill County Judge Andrew Serina told Jean that he considered the fact that he’d never been in trouble prior to this interaction and that he was educated, employed, and a Navy veteran but then re-read the messages he sent to someone he believed was a minor girl.
“It doesn’t erase the acts that were committed here,” the judge said.
Serina said those messages contained “some very explicit, horrible things.
“To go beyond that, you took it upon yourself to hop in your car and drive an hour to have sex with someone you believed was a 15-year-old girl. That is extremely troubling to the court,” Serina said.
Jean’s sentence is in line with state guidelines. In addition to the state prison time, Jean will be required to serve a 3-year probationary period following his release. He was determined not to be a sexually violent predator but will be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.
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