Conservative Babylon

Claims to fame: Republican; Lititz, Pennsylvania, Borough Council member (1994-2001); two-time loser for mayor; mayoral candidate, 2009; husband, father; youth group leader, Lititz United Methodist Church; Santa Claus “at Lititz Springs Park during the Christmas season”; accused child molester

Moral apex: Arrested May 27, 2009, and charged with on two felonies and two misdemeanors — “aggravated indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault and corruption of minors” — for initiating a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl, which lasted from October, 2002, to June, 2004.

“Nies,” reported Lancaster Online, “who is married and has children, inappropriately touched, hugged and kissed the girl when she stayed over at his family’s home, according to a police affidavit filed in the case. …

“[Nies] also contacted the girl online and tried to have ‘Cyber Sex’ with her, a Lititz police detective wrote in the affidavit. …

“Nies has admitted to kissing and touching the girl, the affidavit says, but not to the more extreme ’sexual acts’ alleged by police. …

“Nies would touch the girl’s private areas and kiss her at night in the basement of the home, the victim told police, according to the affidavit.

“There were at least eight encounters, the detective was told. Nies told the girl, ‘This is what dads do,’ according to the affidavit.

“After each encounter, Nies would later contact the girl in an online chat room, ‘telling her that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her,’ Schofield writes in the affidavit. While online, Nies repeatedly asked the girl to have ‘Cyber Sex,’ she told police.”

Cops also said “they had tracked Internet conversations in which Nies logged on more than 500 times between February and April 2009 posing as a teenage girl. In the Internet conversations, according to the search warrants, Nies was using his alias to chat about sexual experiences and seek naked photos.”

Maximum sentence if convicted on all charges: Fifty years.

Warning signs: Before his arrest, Nies had recently been sacked from his job as a CAD drafter, had quit his church job as a youth counselor, and had dropped out of the mayoral race, citing “personal reasons.”

What’s more: There was apparently an earlier, similar allegation against Nies by another female member of his church.

Meanwhile: Nies’ MySpace and Facebook pages have disappeared. (Here’s the MySpace cache.)

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Nies:

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

— Matthew 18:5-7

Filed under: Nies, Greg