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t During the meeting, the 19 per- eiementary facility and the junior t cent figure was stated, but it was into a middle school.Woerner sentencin 94 teen sex caseBy KEITH WARDTimes Staff WriterCarl G. Woerner, 51, was sentenced Monday to as few as four days and as much as 23 months in prison for a Cumberland Township sexual episode with a 14-year-old girl in January 1994.The jail term, Adams County Judge John D. Kuhn told Woerner during sentencing, “was done to impress on you the significance of the events that occurred.” Woerner was convicted last Jan. 13 of corrupting the morals of a minor for having sex with the youth while the two were plowing snow.Woerner, who appeared with his attorney, Jeffrey M. Cook, showed no outward signs of emotion after the sentence was read.Cook then told Kuhn that Woerner plans to appeal the conviction to state Superior Court.Before sentencing, both Cook and Assistant District Attorney Bernard A. Yannetti Jr. offered their reasons why Woemer’s sentence should be lenient or tough.Cook pointed out that Woerner is a long-time Adams County resident and successful businessman, and has provided 28 years of service to the Gettysburg School District (formerly as a bus driver and bus contractor). “Although we would argue that (the sexual act) was consentual, a sentence of probation is clearly within (sentencing) guidelines.”Yannetti, filling in for Martha J. Duvall, who is on vacation, countered that “in light of Woerner’s position of trust within the community, incarceration is an appropriate sentence under these conditions.”Cook responded that Woerner’s been punished enough. “He’s already suffered serious consequences as a result of this. The school district’s taken action. (Woemer’s) no longer allowed to be associated with the school or students in any way. And he has a criminal record.”Kuhn appeared to struggle with finding the right sentence. “These are the cases that are sometimes the most difficult. We have an individual who’s a member of the community. The pre-sentence investigation was all positive and said this was an incident which would be out of character” for Woerner.Kuhn continued. “But it’s hard to understand how a 50-year-old man gets in a situation with a 14-year-old child. I’ve gotten information that the child’s had a lot of difficulty dealing with the situation.”The question, Kuhn said, is how to balance the two conflicting sides: would lack of jail time trivialize the matter, or would incarceration be too harsh under the circumstance?“1 cannot treat it as a rape case or anything more than it turned out to be. In this situation, probation (and no jail time) would normally be imposed,” the judge said.In the end, he opted for the short sentence, plus a fine of $900 and court costs, and restitution for counseling that the victim has undergone since the incident,Additionally, Kuhn prohibited Woerner from having contact with the victim or members of her immediate family.The judge explained that the minimum prison term for a driving under the influence-related conviction is two days. “I couldn’t treat this as less than a drunk driving conviction,” he said.Woerner, of Herr’s Ridge Road, and the girl had sex in the back of his truck behind Gettysburg Country Club. He has maintained that the act was consentual, and Cook got the victim to admit during Woerner’s non-jury January trial that she didn’t tell him “no.”She added that she didn’t say anything because she was afraid, and that after sex she felt “sick, because I knew it wasn’t right.” Woerner was originally charged with rape, but those charges were later dropped.■i umim
Newspaper Details
Gettysburg Times
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, US
Tue, Feb 28, 1995
Page 1
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Jessica D.
PA, USA 06 Mar 2022
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