A Pennsylvania man raped his sister, and their mother told her not to go to police.
Edward Geier was convicted last week of 1,074 counts of rape and molestation for abusing his sister and step-daughter. The trial lasted two and a half days and it took the jury just a few hours of deliberation to decide he was guilty. While he faces life in prison, his mother is not facing any charges for telling her daughter not to report Geier’s rape to police—and even telling her to recant her accusation after she did tell cops.
She might never have come forward had her stepsister not fled Geier’s abuse.
In August 2014, state police found Geier’s 13-year-old stepdaughter walking down State Road 45 just before midnight, five miles from her home in central Pennsylvania. Officers were responding to a caller who reported seeing a child trudging alone along the dark route carrying suitcases.
The girl told police she could not go back to her home because her stepfather had been raping her there for the past four years, most recently a few days earlier. She told police Geier’s abuse began when she was 9 with fondling and progressed to sexual intercourse.
When police served a warrant to search Geier’s home, he did not deny the accusations. According to the criminal complaint, he “insisted police would not find any DNA evidence linked to him in the victim’s bedroom.” But investigators did find Geier’s bodily fluids, including semen, in multiple locations in the victim’s bedroom, which aligned with her account of the years of abuse. Testing revealed the fluid contained both Geier’s and the victim’s DNA.
Police arrested Geier on Feb. 24, 2015, and charged him with multiple counts of 10 felonies for the four years of abuse to which he subjected his stepdaughter. Charges included rape of a child, statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years old, and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion, among others.
The victim’s stepgrandmother might have spared her four years of horror. In 2003, she talked her own daughter, Geier’s 14-year-old sister, out of calling the police after he raped her in his own son’s bed. Geier’s sister only felt safe coming forward after he was arrested, she told police in April 2014.
She said Geier assaulted her twice. The first time she was babysitting Geier’s son in 2003 for the night and fell asleep with the tyke, then awoke to Geier raping her. She told police that Geier claimed he was drunk and thought she was someone else.
Geier’s sister said the second assault occurred in 2007, at her home. Geier reached under the victim’s shirt and touched her breasts. According to a press release from the District Attorney’s office, when she tried to push him away, Geier “told her it was okay because they were not full-blood relatives."
The victim told police she’d wanted to report the rape but was convinced by her mother not to turn her brother in to authorities. She said her mom even pressured her to recant after she reported the assault to police at her school.
A spokesperson for District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller told The Daily Beast that no charges have been filed against the mother at this time, even though her alleged coercion of her daughter not to report the crime could rise to the level of a felony. Asked if her office was considering charges, Miller did not respond in time for publication.
In May 2015 the D.A.’s office added more charges of rape and incest against Geier based upon his sister’s allegations. A judge increased Geier’s bail and ordered that it be paid in cash, citing the victim’s fear of her brother and an incident at his first hearing, in which he reportedly hugged his sister and asked her not to testify against him.
Geier’s sentencing is scheduled for March 18. He faces life imprisonment.
“The ongoing course of conduct is that the mother allows him to have access to the sister. I think any prosecutor is going to see it that way,” Richard Fuschino Jr., a Philadelphia defense attorney who specializes in difficult and high-profile sex crime cases, told The Daily Beast.
Geier’s mother “definitely has exposure for endangering the welfare of a child. As a mother, it’s not even an interesting legal question,” he added.