51yr OLD - Investigated For Keeping 12 Young Girs {6mo - 18yrs old} Inside His PA Home!

Police: Teen mom, 11 girls found in Pennsylvania man's home

Authorities investigate allegation of teenager sold to man by parents

UPDATED 5:44 PM EDT Jun 17, 2016
FEASTERVILLE, Pa. — Twelve children, including a teenage mother, were found in the home of a Pennsylvania man Friday. Police say 51-year-old Lee Kaplan was keeping 12 girls, ranging in age from 6 months to 18 years old, inside his Feasterville home. 

DEVELOPING: Police are investigating an allegation that a teenage mother from Quarryville, Pennsylvania, was sold by her parents to Kaplan.

The parents, who live in Lancaster County and are believed to be Amish, are in custody.

According to the criminal complaint filed by police, Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus told police they did "give" their daughter to Kaplan after he researched the legality of it on the internet. Daniel Stoltzfus told police that his daughter was "gifted" to Kaplan in thanks for helping his family out of financial ruin.
Stoltzfus stated that he knew that his daughter birthed two children and that she was 14 years old when she conceived one child.

Savilla Stoltzfus told police she knew her daughter was having sexual intercourse with Kaplan and did not remove her from the home.
Lower Southampton Township police went to the house on Thursday after receiving a complaint about the health and safety of the children. The initial complaint stated that the resident had told other neighbors that no children lived inside the home.
Kaplan has been charged with allegedly sexual assaulting one of the girls from 2012 to 2015.
Daniel Stoltzfus also faces charges, according to WGAL News 8.
One of the alleged victims, 18, told police she is the mother of a 6-month-old and 3-year-old who lived in the home. She also told them Kaplan fathered both.
Upon questioning, Kaplan admitted to police that he had sexual intercourse with the girl when she was 14 years old, which resulted in the birth of the now 3-year-old child. He also admitted to being the father of the 6-month-old, according to the police report.  Police are continuing to investigate and are searching for identifying documents for the girls.  Kaplan is jailed on $1 million bail.
http://www.wptz.com/news/12-children-found-inside-pennsylvania-family-may-be-involved-police-say/40106882

Neighbors had concerns about man living with 12 girls

John Bacon, USA TODAY 3:15 p.m. EDT June 19, 2016

Some neighbors of the suburban Philadelphia man charged with sex crimes after police found him living with 12 girls say they long suspected something was wrong inside the "creepy" house with high weeds and boarded windows.
Jen Betz told 6abc.com that she saw the suspect, Lee Kaplan, 51, bring home a baby about six months ago. The Feasterville resident said she finally contacted authorities last week after seeing several young girls around the home, all in blue dresses and all looking scared and unhappy.
"I just wasn't gonna let go. I saw a couple girls last week standing in the driveway. They just looked unhappy and sad and again in the blue dresses," she told 6abc.com. "I've been telling my husband for years something isn't right, something isn't right."
Betz told philly.com that everything about Kaplan was "creepy" and that she called child welfare officials. They asked if she thought police should be sent to the home.
"I said 'absolutely,'" Betz explained. "Something needed to be done."
Police, acting on Betz's tip, went into the house Thursday and found Kaplan with the girls, ages 6 months to 18 years. The 18-year-old told authorities that she and Kaplan were the parents of a 3-year-old and the 6-month-old. Kaplan faces statutory sexual assault and other charges and is being held on $1 million bail.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/06/19/neighbors-had-concerns-man-living-12-girls/86114082/

OMG !!!

eddie wrote:I simply don't understand giving a child to anyone let alone in payment? What is wrong won't people???

Yes look up the movie "the room" or "room" can't remember which - it's very relevant to this thread.
Get nold of the book if you prefer reading?

Judge denies lower bail for woman accused of 'gifting' teen
Updated: June 24, 2016 — 1:31 PM EDT 
 by The Associated Press  
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania woman charged with "gifting" her underage daughter to a man with whom the teenager has two children will remain locked up for now.
The woman, Savilla Stoltzfus, is jailed on $1 million bail after a Bucks County judge refused her lawyers' request for a bail reduction Friday. The judge set a July 14 bail hearing.
Stoltzfus and her husband, Daniel, are charged with child endangerment after police found a dozen girls living with Lee Kaplan of Feasterville.

 Her husband told police he and his wife "gave" their 14-year-old daughter to Kaplan after he helped them out financially. Kaplan faces sexual assault charges.
The woman' lawyers have asked the public to withhold judgment. The other two defendants don't have lawyers yet.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160624_ap_54d77ca92f7e4fae92f7e0944a6af2d7.html

And - AND ...there were other concerned neighbors that had reported something 'OFF & ODD' about this situation a year earlier >

Police had visited Bucks home where abuse was suspected
Updated: June 20, 2016 — 10:11 AM EDT
by Chris Palmer and Jason Laughlin, STAFF WRITERS  
Editor's Note: This story was corrected to reflect that only one girl was allegedly "gifted" to Lee Kaplan by Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus.

Although it took until Wednesday for authorities to take action, police officers had previously visited the home of a man now charged in a bizarre scheme in which a family apparently "gifted" a teenage daughter to him and allowed their eight younger girls to live with him in his Bucks County  home.
The man, Lee Kaplan, 51, of Feasterville, is accused of statutory rape and fathering two children with the oldest daughter, now 18, who was 15 when the first child was born, officials said. The second child was born six months ago.

On Sunday, Kevin Rihl, a neighbor of Kaplan's, said he and another person went to Lower Southampton police about a year ago to report unsettling behavior by Kaplan, including his acknowledgment that he was taking care of several girls for their financially strapped parents at his three-bedroom white bungalow on Old Street Road in Feasterville.
While neighbors' concerns about the girls in Amish garb at Kaplan's home had prompted at least one police visit, said Robert Hoopes, Lower Southampton public safety director, officers did not have probable cause to get a warrant to enter the home.
"I'm saying if you go to the house - he wouldn't even let people go in - even if the police were coming, he would turn the lights out, stuff like that," Hoopes said Saturday.

In interviews Saturday, three of Kaplan's neighbors mentioned having called police or social services about the children. Rihl said he believed his meeting a year ago with two detectives and a former police chief should have sparked an investigation of Kaplan. Rihl never witnessed inappropriate contact between Kaplan and the girls, he said, but he found the situation strange enough that he forbid his own young children from playing in the section of their yard closest to Kaplan's house.
"When I started noticing [the girls] outside, and the awkwardness of their character, I thought something's not right here," he said. "I wouldn't even let my kids over that way."
Because he only saw girls in groups of three, Rihl said, he never imagined Kaplan was housing a dozen of them. He did, however, notice other unusual things on Kaplan's property: a bunch of chickens, boarded-up windows, an inflatable pool filled with murky green water, and burning trash.
A few weeks after Rihl's meeting with police, he said, an officer called him back. The officer - whose name Rihl said he did not know - told him they had resolved the yard nuisance issues and were "looking into" questions about the girls.
But Rihl was angry to learn that it was not until another neighbor reported Kaplan to a child-welfare hotline last week that officials took any action against him.
"How long does it take when the evidence is beating you in the face that something's wrong here?" said Rihl, 38.
A neighbor's complaint Wednesday to Bucks County Children and Youth Services finally prompted action, police said, because information about an underage girl's having been impregnated and given birth allowed them to get a warrant. In addition to the statutory rape charges against Kaplan, the parents of the girls, Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus, are charged with child endangerment. The three are each held on $1 million bail.
Kaplan helped the Stoltzfus family escape a debt crisis, authorities said. In return, they said, Daniel Stoltzfus gave his then 14-year-old daughter to Kaplan. It is not year clear how and why the other girls ended up in his home. Investigators from the Lower Southampton Police Department, the Bucks County District Attorney's Office, and Pennsylvania State Police are still seeking answers. Messages to Lower Southampton police went unreturned Sunday, and Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler, reached by telephone, said simply: "We're investigating."
Heckler chaired a task force on child protection formed after child molestation charges were filed against former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky in 2011. Heckler said his office was not notified of irregularities at Kaplan's home until Wednesday.

Heckler said Friday that any potential probe of who knew what - and when - would follow the criminal investigation of Kaplan.
He said the girls appeared to be in good physical condition with no obvious signs of trauma. Authorities said the girls had been removed from the home and were in the care of Lancaster County child-welfare workers, familiar with Amish culture, who would interview them.
Rihl said one piece of the puzzle upset him most: Had an investigation commenced sooner, perhaps the teen girl could have avoided being impregnated a second time.  "All this stuff made me say I can't sit with a clean conscience and not say something," he said. "Why wasn't this done a year ago?"
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160620_Kaplan_had_had_police_visits.html