A 19-year-old Sharon man is being held on a $100,000 bond after police say he raped a 5-year-old girl inside a home on North Oakland Avenue, then fled before officers arrived. Emilio Jesus Santos was arrested about a block and a half away on Reed Street and, according to police, admitted during questioning to sexually assaulting the child.
According to a criminal complaint cited by WFMJ, the child's grandfather found Santos lying on the floor next to his granddaughter, who was only half-clothed and covered with a blanket. The girl was crying and complaining of pain in her genital area, police said. Santos left the home before officers arrived, telling investigators he had been living there for several weeks.
EMTs treated the child at the scene before she was taken to a hospital, per the outlet's report. Police say the girl told them what had happened and said Santos stopped the assault only when her grandfather walked in. Officers later collected a DNA sample from Santos as part of the investigation, the report notes.
Charges and What Comes Next
A district magistrate arraigned Santos on two counts of child rape, aggravated assault, and corruption of minors, according to the same account. He is scheduled for another court hearing on August 28 in Sharon. Under Pennsylvania's rules of criminal procedure, that preliminary hearing requires prosecutors to establish only a prima facie case — sufficient evidence that a crime occurred and that Santos probably committed it — rather than proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, according to Margetas Legal.
Santos remains in custody on the $100,000 bond. Under Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure 524 and 528, monetary bail set at that level typically requires full cash or collateral to be posted for pre-trial release unless a magisterial district judge has explicitly authorized a percentage-bail option, per Goldstein Mehta LLC. Defendants held on bond in the county are detained at the Mercer County Jail, a 310-bed facility in Findley Township, according to Mercer County government records.
Statutory Penalties if Convicted
Pennsylvania law treats rape of a child under 13 as a first-degree felony carrying a statutory maximum of up to 40 years in state prison and fines up to $25,000, according to Shuttleworth Law P.C. State law also mandates a minimum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment for sexual offenses against children under 13, including rape of a child and aggravated indecent assault of a child, under a statute administered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Aggravated indecent assault is legally distinct from rape under Pennsylvania law, criminalizing nonconsensual bodily penetration other than sexual intercourse; it becomes a first-degree felony when the victim is under 13, per the Liberty Law Team. Corruption of minors involving a sexual offense, meanwhile, is graded as a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, according to the Zuckerman Law Firm, and it triggers a 15-year sex offender registration requirement.
A conviction for rape of a child would automatically classify Santos as a Tier III sex offender under Pennsylvania's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, the state's highest classification, requiring mandatory lifetime registration on the public sex offender registry, according to Frank Walker Law.
Local Support Systems in Place
Sharon, a city of roughly 12,900 residents along the Shenango River near the Ohio state line, is Mercer County's third-largest municipality, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. Cases involving child sexual abuse in the county are supported by the Mercer County Children's Advocacy Center, a joint initiative of law enforcement, prosecutors, and child welfare agencies established in 2015 that achieved full national accreditation in February 2023, according to the Mercer County Behavioral Health Commission.
It remains unclear whether Santos has retained an attorney or whether he will seek to modify the terms of his bond ahead of the August 28 hearing. The case will continue to move through Mercer County's court system as prosecutors present their evidence, including the DNA sample collected from Santos, to determine whether the charges advance to the Court of Common Pleas.
