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Man pleads to 2 counts corruption

A Carbon County man, charged with 226 counts related to the sexual assault of a young girl, pleaded guilty in the county court on Thursday to two counts of corruption of a minor and is still facing 58 other counts.

John Phillip Klingaman, 39, of 12 E. Hazard St., Summit Hill, entered the pleas to charges filed by Summit Hill police. Borough police originally charged him with 168 counts.Lehighton police filed 58 counts of sexual assault against him for incidents in that borough.Those charges are still pending with a pretrial conference scheduled for those matters on July 18 in the district attorney's office. The first corruption count is a felony three and the other a misdemeanor one.Summit Hill Chief of Police Joseph J. Fittos and Lehighton Detective Scott T. Preboznyak filed the charges.Charges in Summit Hill included 40 counts of statutory sexual assault with the person being under age 16, 40 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of an individual less than 16 years old, 40 counts of aggravated sexual assault of an individual under age 16, two counts of corruption of minors, 40 counts of indecent assault with a minor and four counts of terroristic threats. In the plea bargain, all but the two corruption counts were dropped.Under state sentencing guidelines, on the felony three count, Klingaman faces a standard range minimum sentence of between six and 12 months in prison.Judge Joseph J. Matika, however, said he was not a party of any plea bargain and can impose any sentence he feels is appropriate within that range.The Lehighton charges are 12 counts of indecent assault of a person less than 16 years of age, 12 counts of corruption of a minor, 12 counts of aggravated indecent assault, 11 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of an individual under age 16 and 11 counts of statutory sexual assault of an individual.The charges stem from incidents that occurred between Sept. 1, 2014, and Dec. 3, 2015.Police said that on at least two occasions, in September and October 2015, Klingaman had the teen smoke methamphetamine and then commit sexual acts. However, on Thursday, public defender Gregory Mousseau, Klingaman's defense counsel, said the drug smoked was marijuana.Fittos said he received the report of the offenses on Jan. 28, 2015 and then interviewed the victim. He wrote in the affidavit that the girl told him that Klingaman had sexual relations with her on a daily basis."He told her at least four times that if she told anyone, he would kill her and then himself," Fittos wrote in the affidavit. "The defendant and the youth would also smoke marijuana which the defendant gave the money to the youth to purchase the drug."He was also charged with four counts of terroristic threats, which were included in the 168 total filed by Fittos.Matika accepted the pleas but deferred sentencing. The charges fall under the provisions of Megan's Law, which means Klingaman must be evaluated by the state sexual offenders assessment board to determine if he is a violent sexual predator.If it is determined that he is, then he would have to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life. If not, then the registration period is 15 years.When Matika asked Klingaman if he was guilty of the charges he was pleading to, he responded, "I'm guilty sir."Matika also ordered the adult probation office to prepare a presentence investigation report.Klingaman remains an inmate in the county prison where he has been held since his arrest, unable to make bail.