Bowling Alley Assignation Leads To Rockland Child Sex Sting

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — An Orangeburg man has been arrested as part of an ongoing undercover investigation into internet-based child sex abuse.

Thomas Szeliga, 32, faces one count of Attempted Criminal Sexual Act in the Second Degree and one count of Attempted Disseminating Indecent Material to Minors in the First Degree.

Prosecutors alleged that between June 3 and 27, Szeliga exchanged many text messages, photographs, and phone calls, sexually explicit in nature, with a girl who he met online and whom he believed to be 13 years old. Szeliga arranged to meet with the child to engage in sex with her at a bowling alley in Rockland County.

In fact, he was communicating with an undercover officer who was posing as a 13-year-old, prosecutors said.

The investigation was conducted by the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office assisted by the Clarkstown Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI Safe Streets Unit, Orangetown Police Department, and the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office.

"My office will continue holding undercover investigations and I caution anyone thinking they may be talking to a minor; it could be an Investigator from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office," Rockland County District Attorney Thomas E. Walsh II said in the announcement.

Walsh commended the work of the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office Special Victims Unit.

Szeliga could face up to 4 years in state prison on each count. The case is being prosecuted by Supervising Assistant District Attorney Gerard Damiani III and Senior Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Knowlton.