A District police officer has been convicted of two sex offenses for having sex with a teenage girl he met online when he was working as a West Virginia sheriff's deputy.
An Ohio County jury found Sean Marenkovic, 32, guilty of two counts of third-degree sexual assault, said Shawn Turak, the prosecutor in the case.
The girl was 14 years old when Marenkovic had sex and oral sex with her in 2003, according to Turak.
At the time, Marenkovic was a sheriff's deputy in the county, which is in northern West Virginia, near the state's borders with Pennsylvania and Ohio. Marenkovic has served on the D.C. force since January 2008 and has been suspended without pay, Gwendolyn Crump, a District police spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
Turak said the two met in an online chat room and at the time, the girl only knew Marenkovic by his online screen name, which indicated that he worked in law enforcement.
Authorities began investigating the case after the victim was called for jury duty in October. In a juror questionnaire, she was asked about her attitude toward law enforcement. After the judge questioned her response, she disclosed what happened and officials began looking into the case, Turak said. The victim had never reported the incidents to law enforcement.
"As she began to mature, she realized that what had happened was wrong," she said.
Marenkovic was indicted in May.
His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Turak said investigators identified Marenkovic as the law enforcement official who had sex with the girl when the victim told officers she knew where the man had lived.
Authorities determined that two then-sheriff's deputies lived in that apartment building. The victim was shown photographs of both men, and she identified Marenkovic as the man.
"It was one little building block after another," she said.
Turak said Marenkovic and the victim communicated on Facebook late last year, and he referred to the sex acts.
But in an initial interview with investigators, he denied knowing the girl, Turak said. He later told authorities he and the victim met online and she later went to his house, but "continued to be adamant that nothing between them had happened."
Marenkovic is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21. He could face between one and five years in prison on each count.
