Unlawful Contact With Minor Leads To Prison For Montco Man

UPPER MERION, PA — A Montgomery County man is heading to state prison after he admitted to trying to have sex with an individual whom he believed to be a boy but who in reality was an undercover investigator, according to media reports and court records.

Donald Giannella, 59, of Upper Merion Township, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court to a felony count of criminal attempt-unlawful contact with a minor.

Court records in the case show that Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Todd D. Eisenberg sentenced Giannella this month to 18 to 36 months in prison for the defendant's crimes, in addition to five years of probation.

Eisenberg also ordered Giannella to register as a sex offender and to have no unsupervised contact with minors.

The defendant was also ordered to stay off social media and continue undergoing treatment.

Giannella reportedly communicated with an undercover investigator who he thought was a 13-year-old boy that he wanted to meet up with the child to make out and have other sexual contact, according to a report in the Mercury newspaper.

The report says that detectives scheduled a meetup with Giannella at a location in Upper Merion Township in the summer of 2019, at which time Giannella was taken into police custody and charged criminally in connection with the act.

The story says that Giannella told investigators he was talking to the fictitious 13-year-old boy on the social media app Grindr.