Courts.
The defendant was arrested during an undercover operation where detectives posed as a girl on social media.
A Lower Providence man who thought he was meeting up with a 14-year-old girl for sex in 2022 and instead was met by an undercover detective is now headed to state prison for 3½ to 7 years after being sentenced in Montgomery County Common Pleas court this week.
Ashish Kumar Verma, 38 , of the 100 block of North Midland Avenue, previously pleaded guilty to felony unlawful contact with a minor and attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a minor, according to court records, and must also register as a sex offender in the state for life.
Judge Thomas M. DelRicci ordered a psychosexual evaluation of the Lower Providence man, and imposed three years’ probation after parole, per court records.
The undercover operation of child exploitation, according to The Mercury, against Verma began in September 2022, where Montgomery County and Conshohocken detectives posed as the girl on various social media sites.
Verma ended up contacting the undercover detective posing as the teenager via a social media chat account and numerous conversations took place, according to Ther Mercury.
At one point in the chat conversation, Verma turned it sexual, asking about the girl’s prior sexual experiences, and eventually, Verma sent the undercover detectives a photo of his genitals, per the report.
Verma then suggested meeting on Sept. 15, 2022 on the 300 block of Washington Street in Conshohocken, where he was taken into custody upon arrival, police said.
