J'ville man arrested for attempted child solicitation in Pekin

By: 
Staff Writer Kate Wehlann

A Jeffersonville man was arrested March 7 and charged with attempted sexual misconduct with a minor following an incident involving a Pekin family late last year.

The alleged incident occurred Dec. 18 and was reported by a Pekin man Jan. 1. The man told Indiana State Trooper Tyler Matthew a man who claimed to be a friend of his had attempted to solicit his teen daughter. The man said his guest, Benjamin Quinton James Weisbach, 33, Jeffersonville, and his wife, who the man believed to be 17, had come to stay with him, his girlfriend and daughter, for multiple days in December.

The man said on the morning of Dec. 18, he woke to the sound of his daughter yelling loudly. At first, he didn’t understand what was going on; Weisbach told him he was getting ready to leave for work. The man escorted Weisbach out of the house, but saw his daughter standing by the door of her bedroom, holding a baseball bat as they walked out of the house. She later told her father that Weisbach had come into her room asking for sex.

The man said several hours after the incident, Weisbach contacted him through Facebook Messenger, asking to have sex with his daughter, implying that he and the man could “share her.” The man said he blocked Weisbach on Facebook, but saved the messages, and hadn’t heard from Weisbach since.

The man told Matthew he tried contacting the mother of Weisbach’s children, who said she didn’t know where he was. She said she believed Weisbach was living out of his car and possibly employed at a hotel in Clarksville.

Matthew spoke with the teenage girl, who said she had known Weisbach most of her childhood and never liked him. She said she had spoken with Weisbach’s wife the night before the incidents and said she thought it was strange an allegedly 17-year-old would be married to Weisbach.

The girl said she woke up around 5 a.m. that morning and saw Weisbach in her room, where he requested sex from either her or her 12-year-old friend staying with her at the time. She said she shouted at Weisbach to get him to leave the room. She said he did leave and then messaged her on Facebook Messenger, asking “Cool if I come in?” She then grabbed a baseball bat to protect herself from Weisbach.

Weisbach is being held in the Washington County Detention Center on a $20,000 bond.

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