DA Agrees Man Charged with Sexting Teen is Incompetent for Trial

Keith Heffintrayer•

Sean P. Snyder, 35, of Doylestown.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office will not oppose a motion to dismiss charges against 35-year-old Sean P. Snyder, of Doylestown, after multiple doctors have stated that he will never be competent to stand trial.

Snyder was charged in November 2017 with felony counts of attempted dissemination of explicit sexual materials to a minor, attempted corruption of minors and attempted unlawful contact with a minor, following an undercover investigation by the Towamencin Township Police Department.

The motion, which will be heard during a hearing in front of Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Risa Ferman on Sept. 12, cites evaluations from both an independent doctor on July 20, 2018, and from a doctor with the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services on April 24, 2019.

Excerpts from the motion, which was filed by Snyder’s public defender on Aug. 27, include:

Mr. Snyder’s IQ is 47, which places him in the extremely low range of intellectual functioning.

Mr. Snyder’s basic academic skills are under-developed, which necessitated the provision of an [Individualized Education Program] focused on life skills training rather than academics.

The static nature of Mr. Snyder’s intellectual deficits, which are quite pronounced, it is unlikely that attempts at competence restoration would be successful in the long term.

Mr. Snyder’s intellectual deficits are fixed, and there is no likelihood that attempts will succeed in bringing him into a condition that will allow him to proceed forward in a trial situation. Given the nature of the defendant’s intellectual capacity, the outlook for effective benefit with treatment is poor.

The motion closes by stating that "dismissal of charges is appropriate where a defendant’s incompetence is continuous and unabated and there is thin chance that competency can be restored.”

According to the criminal complaint, the investigation began on July 8, 2017, after police were contacted by a mother stating that her 13-year-old son had received inappropriate text messages from an unknown number. The mother told police that she had posed as a 13-year-old and engaged the sender in a text conversation that quickly turned sexual in nature. When asked how the sender got the teen’s phone number, the sender—identified as Snyder—replied that he had gotten it from a cellular app, the report states.

Police then received permission from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office to continue the conversation in an undercover capacity, with a detective assuming the role of the teen, the report states. As the conversation continued, Snyder allegedly repeatedly urged the teen to meet up at his house to "make out,” according to the report.

The report also states that Snyder attempted to send a sexually explicit photo to the teen, but the image was intercepted by the mother.

As a result of the investigation, Snyder was arrested on Nov. 16, 2017, and remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in lieu of 10-percent of $50,000 cash bail. He was released from custody two weeks later, after his bail was reduced to $5,000 unsecured.

For the mother of the victim, who was notified by the district attorney’s office several days prior to the motion being filed, the idea of the charges being dismissed against Snyder is abhorrent.

"I received a phone call from the assistant district attorney involved with the case, and I was told that the case would not be moving forward because they were not able to find Sean Snyder competent to stand trial for his actions,” said the victim’s mother, who spoke with North Penn Now on the condition of anonymity. "He will essentially be getting away with this.”

The mother took to Facebook to express her displeasure with the pending result of the case, though she stated that she thought Assistant District Attorney Lauren Marvel did everything she could to prosecute Snyder. The post has been shared by more than 750 people at the time of this writing.

When asked what would happen in the event that Snyder—or anyone legally ruled incompetent to stand trial—were to re-offend, the district attorney’s office told North Penn Now that they are limited in their "ability to prosecute someone who is declared incompetent and does not have the ability to become competent to stand trial.”

"When I received the phone call that his charges would be dismissed, it felt unreal,” said the victim’s mother. "So much time and detail was spent to making sure they could catch him, and then once they had him, suddenly he slipped through. It's scary to think that he is still out there.”

(Editor's note: All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using court records, the affidavit of probable cause, and reflects the point of view of the police. Should the defendant choose to issue a public statement, or is later found not guilty or has the charges dropped, we will update this article accordingly.)