A registered sex offender is headed to state prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges of invasion of privacy, stemming from a 10-month investigation by the Montgomery Township Police Department.
James Dirk Roberts, 57, of Penllyn, pleaded guilty on Monday to five counts of invasion of privacy as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He was scheduled to go to a jury trial prior to striking the deal with the district attorney’s office.
As part of the agreement, which was approved by Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Risa Ferman, Roberts will serve one-to-two years in state prison, followed by six years of probation. Roberts will also become a lifetime registrant under Megan’s Law upon release, and he is prohibited from having unsupervised use of electronics.
Roberts was arrested in May 2021 on eight counts of invasion of privacy, after investigators alleged he took revealing photos of unsuspecting women across Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Philadelphia counties, then uploaded the images with sexually suggestive text to Google reviews.
According to the criminal complaint, the investigation began in July 2020 when Montgomery Township Police received a report by phone in reference to an individual who had taken photos of a female employee at a local business without her permission. The photos were of the victim’s breasts and cleavage while she was at work, and the suspect had attached the images to a Google review of her employer.
The review read:
“I love the [store name]! There are so many [items] to see. Some young and fresh, some aged and matured…equally magnificent! The staff is careless enough to allow me ample opportunities to make myself abreast of the stock. Customer service I received from [victim’s name] was amazing! She knew exactly what I was looking for and she showed me almost everything I wanted. [Victim] made sure to put her heart into her job and she bent over many times so she could present to me the properly aged [items] I was looking for.” (Note: bracketed statements have been inserted by the editor to obfuscate identifying information about the victim and where they worked.)
In an interview with police, the victim stated that she was unaware that the photos were being taken.
After locating the user account, investigators said they found dozens of similar reviews and hundreds of photos of victims between the ages of 13 to 70 years old. The images depicted the victims in various stages of undress, as well as in settings where they would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, police said.
Prior to the investigation, Roberts had been on the sex offender registry for approximately 10 years. Records indicate Roberts was convicted of possession of child pornography in another state on April 6, 2006, and his registry in Pennsylvania began on May 11, 2011.
According to the district attorney’s office, Roberts will report to prison in January, and will be placed on probation until that time.
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