Defendant wants to change guilty plea

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item

May 09, 2008 06:31 am

— Jack E. Harclerode wants to withdraw his guilty plea for molesting a 10-year-old boy at a campground near Elysburg in 2006.
Harclerode, 72, of 1225 Supplee Mill Road, Lewisburg, was scheduled to be sentenced June 19 in Columbia County Court after pleading guilty to first-degree indecent assault for abusing the young Lancaster boy in the summer of 2006.
Williamsport defense attorney Peter Campana filed a motion Thursday requesting to withdraw the guilty plea.
A hearing will be held before Columbia County Thomas A. James Jr. on June 19, just before the scheduled sentencing.
Since Harclerode’s arrest last spring for the alleged assault, he has been arrested two more times for alleged sex crimes involving young boys.
While state police investigated the Lancaster boy’s claims last year, they obtained a search warrant and allegedly found 249 sexually explicit images of prepubescent boys on computers in Harclerode’s East Buffalo Township home.
He’s scheduled to go on trial in Union County June 23 on the pornography possession charges.
In April, state police arrested Harclerode again and charged him with six counts of felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse for repeatedly abusing a Lewisburg boy between the spring of 1992 and fall of 1995.
The alleged victim, now a 28-year-old married father, testified about the sexual abuse at a preliminary hearing Thursday morning. District Judge Leo S. Armbruster postponed a decision on the charges until next week when he’ll have written briefs from Campana and District Attorney D. Peter Johnson regarding the statute of limitations on the 16-year-old case.