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Mirza Ahmed, a 30-year-old from Catonsville, Maryland, began an "online relationship" turn real-life sexual relationship with a 13-year-old East Lampeter Township girl in 2020, the DA's office announced in a release on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023.
Ahmed traveled to New York and then to Columbia, PA to pick up the girl and take her to a room at the Spruce Lane Lodge and Cottages on two occasions in November and December of 2020, according to the release. "Ahmed asked the victim to bring a friend on the second occasion, who witnessed the assaults," as stated in the release.
On December 19, 2020, East Lampeter Township Police met with the mother of the victim after she discovered her 13-year-old daughter was "in a sexual relationship with an older male, Ahmed, who the victim met online," the DA says.
Police arrested Ahmed in February 2021 when he traveled to Lancaster County a third time to meet the victim, according to the district attorney’s office.
His defense was that "he had head trauma as a child and acts impulsively," according to the district attorney’s office.
Ahmed pleaded guilty on March 28, 2022, to two charges of statutory sexual assault, two charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, two charges of aggravated indecent assault, two charges of indecent assault, two charges of unlawful contact with a minor, two charges of corruption of minors, one charge of photographing/filming/depicting a sex act with a minor, and one charge of disseminating a photographed/filmed sex act with a minor, court records show.
He was sentenced to 8-20 years in prison on Dec. 22, 2022, according to the DA's release.
The district attorney’s office notes that YWCA Lancaster runs a 24-hour sexual assault hotline, 717-392-7273, that connects callers to free, confidential counseling and therapy services for community members impacted by sexual abuse, harassment, or assault.
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