18 hours Ago By The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
A Texas Twp. couple face charges after trying to implicate others, including their son, for posting a vulgar comment about their daughters online in an attempt to cover up their own involvement, police said. On June 11, Jennifer Ryan obtained a protection-from-intimidation order against Lana Walker, protecting Ryan and her children from harassment and threats from Walker, according to a criminal complaint.
About a month later, Jennifer and Anthony Ryan told detectives that Walker violated the order by posting lewd content about their daughters on Facebook and expressed their desire to press charges against her, police said. Walker told investigators she didn’t post the message and that the Facebook page where it originated didn’t belong to her, detectives wrote in the complaint. Additionally, Walker told detectives she believed Jennifer Ryan created the Facebook page and made the harassing post to try to get her in trouble, investigators said.
* Anthony Ryan (Courtesy Wayne County Detectives) * Jennifer Ryan (Courtesy Wayne County Detectives) * Jennifer Ryan (Courtesy Wayne County Detectives) * Anthony Ryan (Courtesy Wayne County Detectives) Show Caption 1 of 4 Anthony Ryan (Courtesy Wayne County Detectives) Expand Detectives executed multiple search warrants and learned that the IP address — a numeric designation that identifies its location on the internet — used to post the content online came back to Jennifer and Anthony Ryan. Jennifer Ryan denied having any involvement and told detectives that Walker had access to her Wi-Fi account, investigators said. After being told more search warrants would be executed to see who was responsible, the Ryans asked detectives to stop the investigation and told them they no longer wanted to press charges.
But the detectives moved forward, according to the criminal complaint. When further pressed about the matter, the Ryans said their son was responsible for posting the content, police said. However, when detectives interviewed him, they discovered Jennifer and Anthony Ryan were implicating their son in a crime he didn’t commit in an attempt to conceal their own involvement, investigators said.
Anthony Ryan later admitted creating the Facebook account in Walker’s name and posting the content, according to the criminal complaint. The Ryans also said it was a 50/50 decision between them to place the blame on their son, police said. Detectives charged Jennifer Ryan, 40, with endangering the welfare of a child and false reports to law enforcement.
Anthony Ryan, 43, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, identity theft, tampering with physical evidence and false reports to law enforcement. The Ryans were released on $50,000 unsecured bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.
m..
