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Thomas Terlecky had been wanted on sexual abuse charges in Philadelphia on sexual assault charges since 1997. The police in Miami have arrested him on the outstanding warrant repeatedly.(Photo: Andrew B. Innerarity, for USA TODAY)
For 18 years, Thomas Terlecky has been on the run from charges that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl -- though the police never really bothered to chase him. Now a judge said he can stop running.
Prosecutors in Philadelphia charged Terlecky with assaulting the 14-year-old in 1996. He promptly fled to Miami, and since then, the authorities have turned down one opportunity after another to bring him back to face the charges, saying he was too far away.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>On Tuesday, prosecutors finally dropped the charges altogether.
“Now this man has gotten away with a crime that is so sinister it makes me sick,” the woman he is accused of having assaulted said. She asked not to be identified to protect her privacy.
Terlecky’s case was highlighted last year in a USA TODAY investigation of fugitives who were able to escape justice merely by crossing state lines. Using confidential FBI records, the newspaper found more than 186,000 accused felons who police and prosecutors said they would not pursue beyond their own state borders.
The investigation prompted Philadelphia prosecutors to review thousands of felony case files. As a result, the city told the FBI it planned to pursue hundreds of additional fugitives if they are found outside of Pennsylvania, including several rape suspects who authorities previously had said would be arrested only if police happened to find them in the state.
Cameron Kline, a spokesman for Philadelphia's district attorney, said officials decided to drop Terlecky's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>case because the woman he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was accused of assaulting "was not cooperative with the prosecution." He said officials made one last attempt to locate her before dropping the case but were not successful.
"You found me," the woman told a reporter on Wednesday.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"Maybe they should have looked on Facebook."
The woman told USA TODAY last year that she had testified against Terkecly at a court hearing after he was arrested and assumed he had gone to prison. She said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>she did not realize he was on the run until USA TODAY first contacted her early last year.
Prosecutors dropped the charges at a hearing on Tuesday, and a judge lifted the warrant for Terlecky's arrest.
Terlecky, who has maintained his innocence, said only that he's "relieved that it’s finally over with.”
As fugitives go, Terlecky was never difficult to find. He fled on a Greyhound bus to Miami. He was convicted of having sex with two other girls in Florida — one 14, the other 15 — in the years that followed and is now a registered sex offender, meaning his address is listed on the internet. Each time he was arrested, officers alerted Philadelphia authorities that their fugitive had been found. And each time, Philadelphia authorities declined to take him back because they didn't want to spend the time or money to retrieve him.
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Thomas Terlecky talks about the charges he’s facing, why he fled Philadelphia, and why officials there won’t take him back. Brad Heath, Jennifer Harnish, Shannon Rae Green, Steve Elfers
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