Jury Finds Riley Guilty on All Counts in Child Rape Case

A Schuylkill County jury of 11 women and 1 man took about 90 minutes to find John Thomas Riley, of Pottsville, guilty on all counts, including rape of a child, on Thursday afternoon.

Schuylkill County Common Pleas Judge James Goodman revoked bail and Riley was quickly sent to prison awaiting sentencing. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 11. If maximum penalties are imposed consecutively, Riley will be sentenced to well more than 100 years in prison.

As the verdicts were read and jurors were polled on each charge, both sides of the gallery in Courtroom 7 of Schuylkill County Courthouse were in tears as a case that dragged on for more than 17 months reached its final stage.

On Thursday, jurors heard from the defense’s lone witness, Riley.

Riley told jurors that he believed his juvenile victim, whom he considered to be a daughter to him, was not telling the truth when she previously testified that he had raped her numerous times over the course of several years. The assaults began when she was about 11 years old.

He said he believed that his victim was just mad over an incident in which he struck her in the temple with a remote control.

The previous day, Riley’s victim testified that she first willingly rubbed his feet and calves but the sexual assaults began one day when he asked her to continue progressing up his leg.

Later in their relationship, the victim testified that Riley progressed beyond touching and assaults included forcing her to perform oral sex and him performing oral sex on her.

This ultimately led to acts of rape, which first happened when the two were wrestling and attacks continued frequently after that.

Riley denied any of those attacks while he was on the stand Thursday. He said another reason why his victim would have made up these stories is because of the change in his personality after splitting from the victim’s mother.

“My anger,” he theorized as one reason.

Riley told jurors that among his many health conditions, he’s bipolar and that after parting ways with the victim’s mother, he became suicidal and let himself and his house – where the victim often stayed – go.

“I don’t know. I would just lose my temper, saying things I shouldn’t be saying,” Riley testified.

On a brief cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Bench concluded with one question.

During the trial, he had the child victim draw a layout of the living and sleeping arrangements at Riley’s home when she and a sibling stayed there. All activity was in Riley’s living room and when she and her sibling would spend the night, Riley slept on a bed next to his victim.

“Why are you letting a 12-year-old girl who you think is a liar sleep next to you,” Bench asked.

Riley responded, “Because she’s my daughter.”

Closing Arguments

Riley’s attorney, William Stephens, asked jurors to consider that the prosecution hadn’t presented any physical evidence of what his client was accused of doing. He said they were being asked to believe one story over another.

And that story they were being asked to believe was not consistent throughout the trial and the course of the case.

“There was no evidence presented to show consistency with anything,” Stephens argued.

He also said that the victim in this case only came forward after hearing stories of her friends who had also said they’d been victims of sexual assault as children. And further, the victim was not interviewed immediately at a Children’s Advocacy Center, which is common in these types of cases.

Stephens argued that the month between the allegations first being reported and that interview allowed the victim to craft a story that was brought to trial.

Jurors obviously weren’t believing that argument and heard from Bench, who argued in his closing that Riley had begun grooming his victim from a young age through their shared affinity for pro wrestling.

“He turned that into the darkest thing imaginable,” Bench said, who was clearly getting emotional in both his facial expressions and voice during his closing argument and called Riley a “coward” several times.

He said that Riley even set up his living arrangement to make his assaults possible, even with the victim’s sibling in the same room.

But most damning in Bench’s argument was likely when he showed that his victim resembled her mother. He said that when he lost the mother as their relationship ended, he attempted to replace her with his victim, who had looked at him as the only father figure in her life to that point.

“The woman left but he had the girl who couldn’t resist,” Bench said.

Ultimately, Bench said the victim in this case finally came forward when she realized what the man whom she once considered her father had really been.

“His morality was bull$***,” Bench told jurors.

He said the girl he represented essentially said to Riley by coming forward that “Your truth isn’t the reality of the world” and that’s something she learned by speaking with her friends and other family members.

“She started creating her own life. She said no more. You have no more control over me, John Riley,” Bench concluded.

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