JACKSON TOWNSHIP, York County — A Maryland police officer living in York County is facing felony charges after an alleged sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl came to light, according to arrest documents.
Nicholas C. Bonsall, of Mineral Drive in Jackson Township, is charged with unlawful contact with a minor/providing obscene materials and disseminating sexually explicit material to a minor — all third-degree felonies — and a misdemeanor charge of corruption of a minor. He is free on $75,000 unsecured bail, according to court documents.
The York Dispatch reports Bonsall is a Baltimore County police officer. He is reportedly suspended without pay.
Northern York County Regional Police says the relationship came to light in April, when a friend of the girl alerted police.
Investigators interviewed the girl, who initially was distraught and asked if she was going to get in trouble, according to Bonsall’s arrest affidavit. She eventually told police she and Bonsall began contact through Facebook Messenger and Snapchat in June of 2016. The conversations began to turn sexual in September of 2016, the girl told police.
She admitted that she and Bonsall had exchanged nude photos of one another. She said Bonsall “told (her) what to do,” according to the affidavit. He also sent her sexual videos of himself through Snapchat, the girl said. The two had daily contact, according to the girl.
On the weekend of April 8 and 9, the girl told police she and Bonsall met at his residence and had sex while Bonsall’s son was upstairs. She said Bonsall contacted her when his wife was not home.
The girl provided her cell phone to police for forensic analysis, according to the arrest affidavit. An investigation turned up several texts from Bonsall that included sexually explicit/obscene images.
Police obtained a search warrant for all of Bonsall’s cell phones. They discovered explicit images in his Snapchat gallery that matched those found on Bonsall and the girl’s phone.
A search engine on one of Bonsall’s phones showed a search for “Does deleting my Snapchat account get rid of saved (tapped) messages in the other person’s chat” just before the beginning of the investigation, police said.
