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Convicted couple accused of fondling teens — again

By Staff | Aug 10, 2010

Amber Barto center is taken into custody last Monday.

HUGHESVILLE – Additional charges were filed last week against convicted felons Gregory Barto and his wife, Amber, after two additional female victims came forward to report how the couple allegedly abused them sexually while they were employed at their tire shop, according to state police.

Barto, 45, and his 32-year-old wife also allegedly showed pornographic films to both girls.

One of the victims, who was in her mid teens at the time, reported how Greg and Amber Barto “offered her drugs and alcohol” and that Gregory allegedly also offered her money in return for sexual favors, Trooper Jennifer Jackson said in an affidavit.

The alleged offers of drugs and alcohol were made “after the first month of working there,” the victim told investigators. The girl had worked at Barto’s Tire and Auto Center, 2100 Route 405, in Muncy Creek Township, in 2006 and 2007, Jackson said.

The victim finally quit after allegedly being sexually abused by Gregory Barto as Amber Barto “forcibly held her down,” Jackson said.

The other victim told investigators that soon after she was hired in 2003 “to do odd jobs and clean up,” she went next door to the Bartos’ home, where she “saw porn on the television, drugs on the table and booze in the refrigerator,” Jackson said.

The girl, at the time in her early teens, told police that the couple “smoked marijuana in front of her and asked her if she wanted to get in a hot tub or to go tanning,” Jackson said in the affidavit.

The girl told investigators that the Bartos took her to “a sunroom” in their basement, where the couple rubbed tanning lotion on her after Gregory Barto disrobed, Jackson said.

Amber Barto then allegedly had inappropriate contact with the girl and engaged in sexual acts, Jackson alleges. The couple also had sex with one another in front of the girl, according to the investigator.

After sexually being abused allegedly by Amber, the girl walked into a bathroom where “she quietly broke down,” Jackson said she was told.

The girl told police that the couple never threatened her in any way. “The whole thing made her feel disgusting,” Jackson said.

The Bartos, of 2134 Route 405, were convicted in May of giving underage girls drugs in exchange for sex, which the couple then video taped. Gregory Barto also was convicted of rape, and his bail was automatically revoked. He will be arraigned later this week from the Lycoming County Prison.

Amber Barto, who already was already out on bail on the original charges, was arrested Monday at her family’s tire shop.

She was arraigned before District Judge Kenneth T. Schriner Jr. on charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indent assault, endangering the welfare of children, sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault, corrupting the morals of a minor and multiple conspiracy accounts, including conspiracy to commit rape.

With her during the proceedings was her attorney, Brett Feese. Schriner released her on $100,000 bail.

Both she and her husband are scheduled to be sentenced next month in the conviction case.