A Bucks County school bus driver is accused of raping two teen boys, including a foster child who was in his care.
John Michael Evans, 40, of Tullytown, Pennsylvania, was arrested Tuesday and charged with rape, child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor and other related counts.
Evans allegedly abused the two boys separately between January 2017 and June 2020. One of the victims told police that Evans began abusing him in April when he was 16-years-old, shortly after he was placed in his care.
Evans abused the boy “too many times to count,” according to the criminal complaint.
Evans also allegedly possessed nude photos of the victim and arranged sexual encounters with other men in which he included the teen. Evans told the boy to tell the men that he was an adult if they asked, according to the criminal complaint.
Evans also allegedly told the boy that he had abused another teen boy in the past, stating that no one believed the first victim and that no one would believe him if he reported the abuse, according to the criminal complaint.
The first victim, now 17, reported in December that Evans had abused him on multiple occasions. No charges were filed at the time however due to police not finding sufficient evidence, investigators said. Charges were later filed after the renewed investigation.
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Evans worked as a bus driver for the Pennsbury and Bristol Township school districts prior to his arrest and investigators believe he was also involved in youth sports.
Police are urging anyone who may have been victimized by Evans or has additional information about him to contact Bucks County Detective Lt. David Kemmerer or Detective David Coyne at 215-348-6354 and Tullytown Sgt. Andrew Bunda at 215-945-0999 ext. 225.
Evans was arraigned and then jailed at the Bucks County Correctional Facility in lieu of $500,000 bail.
“These two young men have probably spared more victims from abuse at the hands of this serial child predator by bravely coming forward to police about how he victimized them,” Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said. “I am sorry that they had to suffer this horrific abuse. We owe them a tremendous debt for their bravery.”
NBC10 reached out to the Bucks County Children and Youth Services to find out why Evans was still allowed to have a foster child after the initial allegation. We have not yet heard back from them.
Dr. John DeGarmo, the founder and director of the Foster Care Institute, and an expert on the foster care system, told NBC10 agencies are so overwhelmed that bad foster parents can sometimes slip through the cracks.
"Case workers are overworked, overwhelmed, under-resourced, understaffed and they’re desperately trying to find foster care homes for these children to be placed in," Dr. DeGarmo said.
Dr. DeGarmo told NBC10 case workers are supposed to visit a foster child at least once a month.
"Many times it’s not happening because the case worker has so much on their caseload with courts, with visitations, with birth parents, with doctors' appointments, with paperwork, with meetings and staffing," he said.
"And they have more children on their caseload than they should simply because there are not enough case workers for the foster parents. One thing you can do is you can lower the ratio of case worker to foster parent."
Dr. DeGarmo also warned that child predators could use the continued COVID-19 lockdown to target more victims.
"We have millions of kids right now who are home in front of their computers who are being un-monitored and unsupervised," he said. "And many of them are going online and they’re looking for someone to accept them. Someone to like them. Someone to love them. Because they’re not getting it at home. And predators recognize that so they lure them in with false hope. False promises."
