Hanover Twp. man pleads no contest on child sex charges
Jul. 3—WILKES-BARRE — A Hanover Township man accused by Kingston Police of attempting to contact a 15-year-old for sex — not realizing that it was a detective — entered no contest pleas on the charges against him.
Robert Lynn Henkel Jr., 54, entered the no contest pleas on three counts of unlawful contact with a minor in front of Luzerne County Judge Joseph F. Sklarosky Jr. on Thursday.
A plea of no contest means that Henkel does not specifically admit guilt, but that he acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Henkel is one of several men arrested by Kingston officers for communicating with social media accounts supposedly run by children, but which were actually run by a borough detective.
Henkel was arrested last August after the detective received a message on an unspecified app from a user with the screenname "suck you now."
After a brief conversation, the conversation was moved to an app where Henkel used his real name. The detective told Henkel that the "boy" he was pretending to be was only 15.
"No problem bud," Henkel wrote back, adding that he remembered being young and using fake IDs to get into clubs, and that "when I was your age I didn't care for most guys my age either, nothing wrong with that."
The "boy" confirmed that Henkel had no problem with the age.
"As long as you aren't a cop or working with the cops," police say Henkel responded, before going on to explain the sexual acts he wanted to perform on the "boy."
Later, Henkel returned to his concerns:
"And just to ask again when I come get you I'm not going to be met with cops or anything to get busted, right? You see news stories all the time about an adult getting busted by getting together with someone much younger than them," Henkel texted.
The sex talk then continued.
But Henkel was "busted." He agreed to speak without an attorney present and admitted to having sexually charged conversations with someone he believed was a minor.
Court records show Sklarosky scheduled Henkel's sentencing for Nov. 18. He remains out on $250,000 straight cash bail until his sentencing.
