A Pennsylvania man accused of drugging at least six women he met online and raping or sexually assaulting them while they were impaired was arrested on Wednesday, the authorities said.
Over a year, the man, Andrew J. Gallo, 40, of Bristol Township, Pa., met the women and a minor through a dating website called Sugardaddymeet.com and invited them to his home, giving them drinks laced with drugs in order to violently assault them, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. They ranged in age from 17 to 30, the prosecutor’s office said.
Sugardaddymeet.com describes itself as a place for “successful men and attractive women looking for mutually fulfilling relationships.”
Mr. Gallo is being held under $500,000 bail at the Bucks County Correctional Facility. It was unclear on Wednesday whether Mr. Gallo had legal representation or how he intended to plea.
“He methodically carried out what was clearly preplanned crimes with the sole purpose of satisfying his deviant sexual desire,” Jennifer Schorn, the district attorney in Bucks County, in suburban Philadelphia, said during a news conference on Wednesday.
Mr. Gallo was arraigned on Wednesday on five counts of rape by causing impairment, six counts of drug possession, four counts of strangulation, two counts of providing alcohol to minors and one count of corruption of minors, the authorities said.
According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Gallo’s alleged crimes date back to at least June 2023, when he began talking with the women on sugardaddymeet.com under the username DREWSTER420. One told police that Mr. Gallo used the name KAE, prosecutors said.
After connecting online, Mr. Gallo had invited the women over to his home for drinks that he secretly spiked with drugs, including methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine, the authorities said. The victims, according to the criminal complaint, described feeling strange after consuming the drinks Mr. Gallo had given them, which typically came from already opened wine bottles or other open bottles, or drinks he made himself, including margaritas, according to the criminal complaint. The women said they felt out of control and unable to stop Mr. Gallo during their sexual encounters with him, which they described as violent.
Mr. Gallo rendered his victims “so impaired that they were unable to consent to anything, let alone sexual acts,” Ms. Schorn said.
Mr. Gallo raped five of the six victims, Ms. Schorn said. Mr. Gallo also physically assaulted them, choking some to the point of unconsciousness, she said.
Some of the women told law enforcement that they were up for days and experienced psychosis or hallucinations after spending time with Mr. Gallo. Their experiences led them to go to the hospital, and lab results showed that the women had methamphetamine and other drugs in their system, the prosecutor’s office said.
At least one woman learned she’d been drugged after taking a mandatory drug test as part of a job application process, according to the criminal complaint.
“This is a young woman’s worst nightmare,” Ms. Schorn said during Wednesday’s news conference. She commended the women for their strength and bravery in reporting the abuse.
“They came forward to report crimes that quite frankly predators like this assume the victims won’t have the strength to do,” Ms. Schorn said.
Representatives for sugardaddymeet.com did not respond to requests for comment. The investigation remains ongoing, and the authorities have said that they believe there are other victims.
“Please come forward so you can have justice as well,” said Robert Coulton, chief of the Bristol Township Police Department.
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