Retired cop, convicted of molesting teen, faces decades in prison

A retired Philadelphia police officer faces up to 59 years in prison after a judge found him guilty of molesting a teenage girl during a 2 1/2-year relationship.

Walter Sasse, 77, an Army veteran who spent 18 years on horseback in the police department's elite Mounted Patrol, was convicted Friday of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor and related offenses.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Steven R. Geroff set his sentencing for May 6 and ordered a mental health evaluation and sex-offender assessment.

Sentencing guidelines call for a punishment of 29 1/2 to 59 years in prison, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

Sasse met the girl in 2010, when she was 14, at Courtesy Stables in Andorra, where she rode horses and he supervised the barn and gave riding lessons. By the time she was 15, occasional friendly hugs had escalated to frequent oral sex and masturbation in the barn, his Roxborough home and his truck until she ended things in December 2013, she testified in court.

When she called things off, prosecutors said, Sasse threatened to kill himself, asked to meet with her, showed her a picture of his handgun and started showing up wherever she was.