State DEP spokesperson pleads guilty to indecent assault charges
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/08/state_dep_spokesperson_pleads.html
Maybe because Rathbun’s public Linkedin page says he currently works as DEP Press Secretary. Even though this is Rathbun’s, there should be a way to make him change it. It might be adding to the confusion.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-rathbun/3/9b1/765
More disturbing though: below is a link to a screen capture from Rathbun’s Linkedein profile Aug 3, 2011…two (2) days before this conviction. It shows he was linking to new connections that day. In other words, he was freely prowling the web on Aug 3, 2011. This is perhaps even more disturbing than the miscarriage of justice which allows him to plea to a misdemeanor raping (at least) two little kids.
We should be able to keep people like this off the internet.
Screen capture from Rathbun’s Linkedein profile Aug 3, 2011
UPDATE: Rathbun’s Linkedein profile Nov 30, 2012
He’s out:
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/11/former_traffax_reporter_and_de.html
Less than 2 years for showing pornography on a computer to one girl, using handcuffs and a gag on a teenage girl, and taking nude photos of her in various positions? Wow…just freakin’ wow!
…And less than one month prior to his parole, he has even more connections. So his web account has been active during his incarceration. This may indicate he has been online. Having predators like this online scares this parent very much:
I wish we could protect our kids better than we are doing with Rathbun.
Steve Todd - Passionate about things that matter. 
Possibly even more disturbing is the Senior District Attorney Christylee Peck, who is in line to be sitting on the Cumberland County bench come January 1, 2012, allowed this man to be released from prison on a Rule 600 violation. He was under house arrest since the end of April, which is why he was able to be on the internet and this screw up by her occurred during her “campaigning.” Peck based her campaign on how tough she is against child molesters…apparently that was prior to her winning the primary election.
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Interesting perspective, Allison. But I have evidence that Tom Rathbun may have kept accessing the web later…even after conviction. I am out of town tonight on work, but will post more later. Thanks for your diligence and courage.
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I know that this comment comes nearly 5 years after the original post, but I just found it. I wanted to clear some things up from the perspective of one of his two victims. Obviously I cannot prove that I am one without disclosing my identity and I don’t want to do that (although everyone in my hometown, I’m sure, knew who we were). Rathbun is absolutely guilty, nothing was made up, and he deserved to go to prison and probably got far too light a sentence, especially considering the impact it has had on my sister and will likely continue to have on her for the rest of her life. I don’t excuse a thing he did. That said, he didn’t rape at least two kids. What happened to me wasn’t in any way okay, but it wasn’t rape. He would come to my room in the middle of the night and hug me inappropriately when I was 9, 10, and 11, he would take pictures of me sleeping, and would wait for me to come out of the shower so he could see me in a towel for about 3 years after that. One time at about age 11 he “helped” me adjust my shirt and “accidentally” pulled it way too far down. Never touched me below the waist, never had me do anything to him, and not a fraction of a drop in the bucket of what my sister went through. He intentionally kept it vague and ambiguous, so that I would question whether it was really happening, and so that if I ever told anyone he would be able to convincingly claim that I had invented things in my head and misread his actions. Consequently, questioning myself is exactly what I did for years and years of my life. There were times I knew something was very wrong, and one particular time I came very close to telling two middle school friends. Then I would stop myself and become convinced that I was making something out of nothing. What happened to one of Rathbun’s victims was NOTHING compared to the other one. I don’t blame the author of this blog for that mistake, though, as pennlive and the other media got it wrong years ago when this all came out. Tom did much less to me because he knew I might tell if he did more. My sister was, and is, mentally disabled. He knew this. He took advantage of it. He admitted all of it both in court and to his therapist (a therapist who was his expert witness at sentencing and who honestly helped our case more than Tom’s). He knew the younger victim was easily manipulated, he knew that he could ask her not to tell and she wouldn’t, he knew all of that. And that’s why such awful things happened to her. To this day she struggles with all of it, which is why as much as I want to be able to forgive him, I don’t think I ever will. Tom’s lawyer tried early on to the press to make it out as though there was something suspicious about the fact that we had not come forward until adulthood. That lawyer, however, as someone well-educated in defending child abusers, knows that factually, most victims do not come forward until adulthood. I didn’t know that all the things I had questioned as a child were true until one day when we were both adults, my sister said she wanted to talk to me and said, “it’s about Tom.” In that second, I knew I had imagined nothing. What she told me is exactly what the press reported, and then some. All of it is true, and in court he admitted it. He also admitted it to us personally the day everything about my sister came out. In no way do I think he didn’t deserve what he got, and I think that having to register with Megan’s List is 100% right. But he did not, in fact, rape two little kids. If we’re being technical, he didn’t even “rape” one, although I suppose that depends on your definition. But one local media outlet twisted the facts years ago and meshed the two victims and the offenses together, and then the others ran with it.
For the record, there was at least one other victim, not a family member, who did not wish to come forward. I would not be surprised to learn there were others.
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Thank you for your incredible courage. How far and to how many Rathbun’s violations went was a secondary concern of my blog. Saying that is NOT to minimize the primary concern, crime wise and relative to the damage on your lives. It is simply to clarify what I was and am trying to do.
For a long time – too long – after his conviction, and now you say his allocution to these heinous crimes, he not only had access to the internet, but documentedly used it. While all documented cases were legitimate uses, the fact that he was online begs the hope that it was supervised.
If not, I want an historical record forward. Why? As you suspect and as I do, and as history indicates his victims were not at all likely limited to you and your sister. I doubt his behavior has stopped, given the slap on the wrist society sent him forth with.
May someone somewhere, who feels as alone and unsure even of their own sanity as all victims of child predators must, find this evidence should they ever need it.
And may Tom Rathbun, a man I knew professionally, and never suspected a thing untoward about, rot in Hell. Every one like him too.
God bless you, and mostly your dear sister. May she heal and understand that she was the victim, and that that victim could have as easily been anyone. I know too very many adults who say similar things have happened to them (not from Tom, but generally). In almost every case they are disbelieved, in some cases shunned by their very support network, and in every single case, in some way adversely affected.
Peace.
I still consider his crimes rapes, although as you insightfully point out, each must define that internally.
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