WEST CHESTER — After two hours of deliberation, a jury found former New Garden Supervisor Warren Reynolds, 64, guilty on more then 30 charges in the abuse of a girl that started when she was 8 years old and lasted four.
Reynolds’ weeklong trial ended with the guilty verdict before Chester County Judge Bret Binder. The former awaits sentencing.
“Thanks to the courage of the victim and the work of investigators and prosecutors, the jury convicted the defendant of all the crimes he was charged with in less than two hours,” said Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe, Chester County district attorney.
Reynolds was found guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing the child from 1999 to 2003.
During the trial, testimony revealed that the majority of the sexual abuse occurred at a residence in New Garden while Reynolds was supposed to be caring for the victim.
The former elected official served time in state prison for possession of child pornography.
In June 2013, Reynolds was charged with child porn possession.
That investigation began after his wife called a computer technician to service a family computer.
Investigators say that as the technician worked on the unit he discovered numerous images of child pornography. Some of the files were accessed the previous day while Reynolds was home in New Garden.
The technician reported his findings to state police, and an investigation began, officials said. Police executed a search warrant at Reynolds’ home and made the discovery. He was initially charged with 500 counts, but the number of charges was cut in the terms of a plea deal.
Officials said state police investigators recovered multiple computers, external hard drives, floppy disks, compact disks, VHS tapes, reels of film, photo slides, a video camera, printed images of adults sexually assaulting children, and a pair of children’s underwear during their search of Reynolds’ house.
Reynolds had served as a township supervisor in his hometown of New Garden until his arrest in 2013 on those child porn charges.
He was sentenced to two to four years in state prison for the child pornography, then later charged with violating his probation and sentenced to an additional 212 days of confinement by Judge David Bortner.
Then in September 2020, Chester County detectives interviewed a victim who detailed being sexually abused by Reynolds for several years beginning when she was 8. The abuse occurred several times a week between 1999 and 2003 when she was in his care.
The abuse also happened in Delaware in New Castle County and Lewes. The victim told detectives that the defendant digitally penetrated and fondled her.
In June, Reynolds suffered an overdose of prescription medicine during pre-trial.
According to defense attorney Vince DiFabio of the Tredyffrin law firm of Platt, DiGiorgio and DiFabio, Reynolds was found by local police during a wellness check after he failed to appear for pre-trial matters in the morning. He was taken to a hospital and later released.
Common Pleas Judge Bret Binder, who was set to preside over the trial, issued a bench warrant for Reynolds’ arrest at the request of the prosecutor in the case, First Assistant District Attorney Erin O’Brien. He conditioned the warrant would only be enforced if Reynolds was not in a hospital or other medical facility.
DiFabio said he did not know whether the overdose of medication was intentional or accidental.
Reynolds comes from a well-established New Garden family that operated a dairy farm in the township. Benjamin Reynolds, his father, had served as a state representative in Harrisburg until 1976, when he took his own life.
Already on probation for the child porn charges, Reynolds was arrested in April 2020 for charges of aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and other charges. In a social media post announcing the arrest at the time, then-District Attorney Deb Ryan was quoted as saying that Reynolds, “engaged in a depraved and systemic course of conduct violating a young child he was responsible for protecting and keeping safe.”
It was Ryan, coincidentally, who as a supervisor of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit, prosecuted Reynolds in 2014 for the child pornography case.
For anyone with safety concerns regarding the well-being of a child, call 1-800-932-0313.
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