A Lancaster County judge has sentenced a former constable from Birdsboro to 28 to 57 years in state prison for trying to pay to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl.
Bradley Buchanan, 40, of the 400 block of East Third Street was arrested in August 2022 as part of an undercover operation by the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force.
He was convicted by a jury in October of attempted statutory sexual assault, soliciting sex, unlawful contact with a minor, attempting to patronize a victim of human trafficking, soliciting sex from a victim of human trafficking, attempted indecent assault of someone less than 16 and soliciting sex from a person less than 16.
Buchanan was sentenced by Judge Thomas Sponaugle on May 27.
According to information provided by the Lancaster County district attorney’s office:
Bradley responded to an Aug. 24, 2022, online advertisement posted by law enforcement offering sex with a minor, communicating with whom he thought was a family member of a 12-year-old girl but was actually a member of law enforcement.
Bradley agreed to pay $250 to have sexual intercourse with the girl and requested a nude photograph of her. Police linked the phone number used in the communication to Bradley.
Bradley traveled to a hotel in Salisbury Township, Lancaster County, where he met with an undercover officer and was subsequently arrested.
“This was an online child predator sting that caught just that,” Assistant District Attorney Fritz Haverstick said during his closing argument, according to a release from the district attorney’s office. “Bradley Buchanan was online looking to prey on a child in this community. He was online looking to purchase the body of a 12-year-old from that child’s aunt, so he could sexually abuse that child for $250.
“(He) thought he found just that. Fortunately, he found a dedicated team of law enforcement officers who are trying to keep this community safe from child predators.”
Bradley’s conviction was a second strike after he pleaded guilty in Berks County Court in 2012 to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.
According to detectives who investigated that case:
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5, 2012, Buchanan knowingly and intentionally sent inappropriate sexual messages to a 15-year-old female via Facebook. The messages were initially discovered by the victim’s mother.
During the course of the investigation, detectives learned Buchanan had “friended” the victim online and that the pair corresponded on a daily basis.
On one occasion, detectives said Buchanan convinced the victim to go for a walk and picked her up in his vehicle a short distance from her home.
He drove her to the Lake Drive Recreational Park in Douglassville, where he parked the vehicle and had sexual intercourse with her.
Bradley was sentenced to six to 23 months in county jail and five years of probation for that crime.