Man Gets Prison Time For Upper Moreland Rape & Strangulation

WILLOW GROVE, PA — A Delaware man is heading to a Pennsylvania state prison for up to a dozen months after a judge sentenced him to time behind bars following his admission that he forcibly raped and strangled a Bucks County woman at a Willow Grove hotel in the spring of 2021.

Tygee Dennis, 23, of Dover, Delaware, was sentenced to 5 to 12 years in prison on June 2 by Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman, who also gave the defendant five years of probation after his eventual release from custody.

The sentencing came after Dennis pleaded guilty to felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse-threat by forcible compulsion, and strangulation, court records show.

Dennis received 3-and-one-half to 7 years on the strangulation count, but the judge ordered that the sentence be carried out concurrently with the rape sentence.

According to media reports, Dennis was arrested back in March 2021 after a woman who he was dating at the time reported that Dennis had non-consensual, forcible sexual intercourse with her while the two were saying at a room at the Hampton Inn on Easton Road in Willow Grove, Montgomery County.

The victim, who resides in Bristol Township, Bucks County, told authorities that the two had gotten the hotel room to celebrate her birthday, but that the sexual encounter turned non-consensual at one point during the night, and that Dennis even strangled her to the point of unconsciousness during the evening, according to a news report in the Times Herald, which cited a police criminal complaint.

Court records show that in addition to the prison sentence and subsequent probation, the judge also ordered Dennis to comply with lifetime registration requirements under Megan's Law for sexual offenders, that he receive counseling and a sex offender evaluation, that he has no contact with the victim, and that he undergoes sex offender supervision.

According to the report in the Times Herald, the victim initially contacted Bristol Township Police regarding the filing of criminal charges, since she resides in that community, but the case was ultimately transferred over to the Upper Moreland Police Department in Montgomery County since that is where the incident occurred.

The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office ultimately prosecuted the case.

Court records showed that Dennis had been held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility pending trial.

Other criminal charges against Dennis had been dismissed at the time he entered the guilty plea on the two felony counts, according to the criminal docket sheet in the case. They included rape by forcible compulsion, aggravated assault, indecent assault and other counts.