CLEARFIELD – An Osceola Mills man accused of soliciting inappropriate photos from juvenile girls was in court Monday asking for his bail to be lowered.
Police say they were contacted in July by members of a child predator exploitation organization who had been texting with Reed Eugene Meeker Jr., 39, who believed they were young girls.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, they provided investigators with multiple text conversations during which Meeker described sexual acts he wanted to perform on the girls and asked for photos of the two doing sexual things to each other.
During the chat, Meeker’s face and private area were reportedly visible.
At one point, he said that when they meet, he wanted the girls to wear dresses with no underwear and explicitly described what he wanted to do to them.
Throughout the texts, Meeker repeatedly requested photos of the girls performing sexual acts, according to the report.
Meeker is charged with one felony count of criminal solicitation-child pornography with his bail set at $250,000.
During Motions Court Monday, his attorney, Karen Muir asked Judge Paul E. Cherry to lower his bail so he can possibly be released and help care for a family member.
She noted that bail is not supposed to be used as a punishment and suggested his bail be $50,000.
First Assistant District Attorney Leanne Nedza responded that this is Meeker’s second offense and if convicted he is looking at a mandatory sentence of 25 years. She opposed any reduction of bail on the grounds that he is a danger to the public.
Cherry agreed that part of the reason for bail is to protect the community but granted the motion to reduce Meeker’s bail. He kept it at a significant but lower amount of $150,000.
It was noted that if he should be able to post that amount, he would be monitored on supervised bail.
Online court records show that Meeker pleaded guilty to sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, two counts of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors in Centre County in 2005.
At that time, he was determined to be a sexually-violent predator.