YORK COUNTY — A former Baltimore County police officer will serve three to 23 months in York County Prison followed by three years of probation after admitting Monday that he sent sexually explicit photos to a 16-year-old York County girl, according to court documents.
Nicholas C. Bonsall, 40, of Mineral Drive in Jackson Township, pleaded guilty to disseminating sexually explicit materials to a minor. Two additional charges — unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of a minor — were dismissed.
Bonsall was also ordered to have no contact whatsoever with any minors except his own children, ages 4 and 7. His contact with them must be supervised by another adult family member, the court ruled.
The charges were filed last year after Northern County Regional police began an investigation when a friend of the 16-year-old girl alerted them to a sexual relationship between the girl and Bonsall, according to a criminal complaint filed in July 2017.
In interviews with police, the girl said she began having contact with Bonsall, who was her neighbor, through social media. They began exchanging nude photos and videos of themselves to one another when the girl was 15 years old, the criminal complaint said.
The girl said she and Bonsall began a sexual relationship sometime around her 16th birthday. A search of Bonsall’s cell phones revealed evidence of texts containing sexually explicit images.
One of Bonsall’s phones also showed an online search he did before police began investigating that said “does deleting my Snapchat account get rid of saved…messages in the other person’s chat.”
Bonsall had been a Baltimore County officer for 15 years and was a detective first class when he was suspended without pay because of the York County criminal case. The York Dispatch reports that Bonsall is no longer employed by the Baltimore County Police Department.
