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A Plymouth man charged last week with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman he bound with duct tape is a lifetime registrant under Megan’s Law due to a rape conviction nearly 20 years ago.
Charles David Kocher, 45, of Franklin Street, is mandated to register his address, employment and vehicles he owns with the State Police every three months as a Tier III offender.
Registration requirements in Pennsylvania are broken down into three tiers dependent on the type of crime and conviction. Tier I offenders are subjected to registration for 15 years, Tier II offenders are required to register for 25 years, and Tier III offenders are subjected to lifetime registration.
Court records say Kocher pleaded guilty before now retired Luzerne County Judge Gifford Cappellini on Sept. 13, 2000, to rape by force, simple assault and criminal attempt to resist arrest. Prosecutors withdrew 15 various counts against Kocher.
Kocher was sentenced to four to eight years in state prison followed by one year probation.
He was released on parole June 21, 2004, according to the state Department of Corrections.
According to a Times Leader story published April 15, 2000:
Plymouth police arrested Kocher after he forced his way inside a house on Center Street, held a knife to a woman’s throat and dragged her down 13 steps. Kocher used a sweater to tie the woman’s hands and raped her on a couch.
While Kocher raped the woman, the woman heard her daughter yelling, “Mommy.” The woman told police that’s when Kocher got up and told the woman to call police before running out of the house.
Kocher went to work and later called the woman, told her his location and asked, “Did you call the police yet?”
Police arrested Kocher after a brief foot chase. At his arraignment, Kocher told a district judge he had blackouts from an alcohol problem.
In Kocher’s latest arrest by Hanover Township Police on Friday, he claimed he couldn’t remember using duct tape and a shoelace to bound a woman because he blacked out, according to a criminal complaint.
Township police say Kocher picked up a woman and two relatives in Nanticoke and dropped off the relatives in Breslau. He then drove the woman to a boat launch area near the Susquehanna River and began drinking beer.
Kocher ignored the woman’s pleas to take her home, the complaint says.
The woman alleged Kocher then drove to a service station’s parking lot on Breaker Road where he tied her up with duct tape and a shoelace and stunned her with a Taser at least 10 times as she fought back. She claimed Kocher then sexually molested her for hours until police found them early Friday, according to the complaint.
Police said the woman had visible injuries to her neck and wrists.
Kocher remains jailed for lack of $350,000 bail on two counts each of aggravated assault, simple assault and indecent assault, and one count each of terroristic threats, kidnapping, unlawful restraint and strangulation.