Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
A 20-year-old man will serve a lengthy prison sentence and have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life after pleading guilty to the 2015 sexual assault of a 72-year-old woman that happened in Middletown.
Patrick Joseph Dilks, 20, of Middletown, was sentenced Monday to serve 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison, a consecutive five year probation term and $880 in restitution to his victim on both involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and burglary of an occupied dwelling charges.
Advertisements
According to court record, Dilks’ victim encountered him holding a knife in her Parkvale Avenue home’s hallway around mid-day in October 2015. Dilks then forced the woman to disrobe and perform oral sex on him by threatening her with rape.
“I felt fear like I had never felt fear before when I walked out of my bedroom and saw a strange young man holding a knife in my hall,” recalled the victim in a statement, which she asked Deputy District Attorney Kristin M. McElroy to read in court. “I have forgiven him but I want to be sure that he gets a fair punishment so no other person has to go through this horrific experience. He has to learn that there are consequences to bad decisions.”
In addition to his sentencing, Dilks will have to undergo drug and alcohol and sex-offender treatment.
Advertisements
The victim, who did not have to testify against Dilks in court, said she had to undergo counseling to help her process what had happened.
“We want him to be a better person when he comes out so he can have a fulfilling life,” the victim wrote. “We will pray this for him.”
Advertisements
Dilks, who according to court record, struggled to explain his crime, said, “That wasn’t me that day. It probably doesn’t mean that much at this time.”
Detective David Strother used DNA from semen left behind to link Dilks to the crime.
Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Rea B. Boylan presided over the case and noted that the negotiated plea agreement took into consideration what she called “the horrendous nature of [the] assault.”
