A Carbon County man entered a guilty plea on Tuesday in county court to one count of corruption of a minor for an incident involving a young girl.

John Matthew Balk, 40, of Palmerton, and formerly of Lehighton, entered the plea before Judge Joseph J. Matika. The corruption count was downgraded from a felony 3 to a misdemeanor one and two other misdemeanor counts of indecent assault were dropped in a plea deal with the district attorney’s office.

Balk was charged by state police at Lehighton for an incident on March 1, 2021. Police said Balk inappropriately touched a 14-year-old girl in a Lehighton residence.

The plea deal was made with the approval of the girl and her family, it was noted, who went along with a probation sentence recommendation. Matika said he received a letter from the girl stating how the incident has affected her mentally but that it appears she did not want to go through testifying at a trial and agreed to the probation term.

Matika placed Balk on probation for two years and ordered he render 100 hours of community service, have no unsupervised contact with anyone under 18, have no contact with the victim, supply a DNA sample, submit to a sexual offenders evaluation, pay court costs of more than $1,000 and pay a $50 per month supervision fee while on probation.