A Carbon County jury panel of nine women and three men found a Wayne County man guilty of 11 of 13 sexual assault related criminal counts on Thursday following a three-day trial.

George Karagiannis, 30, of Honesdale, was found guilty of two counts each of aggravated indecent assault and corruption of minors, four counts of unlawful contact with a minor, and one count each of sexual abuse of children, photograph, film, depicting on computer sex act with a child and criminal use of a communication facility. He was acquitted on the two felony 1 counts of rape of a child and statutory sexual assault.

Karagiannis did not testify at the trial and did not present any testimony. In fact, chief public defender, Paul J. Levy, who represented the defendant, did not ask any of the commonwealth witnesses any questions on cross examination. The Commonwealth called 10 witnesses, including the two victims.

Karagiannis was accused of sexually assaulting two girls in May 2020, in Summit Hill. They were sisters and were 12 and 13 at the time.

Summit Hill police officer Michael Leighton was the initial investigator in the case but later asked the state Attorney General office for assistance because of all the work involved in the case, which included use of social media sites. The AG’s office actively took over the prosecution.

The younger of the two girls first made contact with Karagiannis on the social media site Omegle.

The conservation moved to the Snapchat site and Karagiannis asked the two girls to send him nude photos of themselves.

Karagiannis then sent a nude photo of himself.

The testimony revealed that the girls agreed to meet Karagiannis the same night of the initial contact, in Summit Hill in the area of Ludlow Park, which was close to where the girls were living.

The girls said they sneaked out of their home about midnight and went to the park. They saw a truck in the area that eventually pulled over. Karagiannis got out of the truck and walked over to the girls. They only knew him as “John M.”

The girls got into his truck and they drove around for a time until he pulled over in a wooded area. At this time the girls said he sexually assaulted them.

They said they then returned home and the younger girl “blocked” Karagiannis from contacting her on Snapchat site.

In July 2020 the girls told their father’s girlfriend about the incident. She called the girls’ mother who then went to the borough police and reported it.

Besides the two girls testimony, the commonwealth called several investigators from the AG office and a state trooper. There was considerable testimony concerning electronic devices such as cellphones and home computers.

In September 2020 Leighton showed the girls, individually, a eight-photo lineup of possible suspects. Both girls positively identified Karagiannis as the man who assaulted them from the lineup.

On Sept. 29, 2020, agents of the AG office, along with state troopers and the Wayne County district attorney’s office, served a search warrant on Karagiannis’ Honesdale home. They seized electronic devices, including cellphones and computer towers. Also at the home property was the pickup truck which the girls identified as the one the defendant was driving the night of the assault.

The photos girls sent to the defendant and the one he sent to them could not be recovered because the Snapchat site immediately deletes photos after they are viewed.

In his closing argument Levy said the commonwealth was only able to show one contact made between his client and the younger girl despite finding hundreds of items in the defendant’s social media accounts.

After the verdict was announced, President Judge Roger N. Nanovic II reset bail and remanded Karagiannis to the county prison.

Lead prosecutor for the AG was Deputy Attorney General Angela Lynn Raver.

The jury was selected on Monday and the trial began Tuesday morning. The jury announced its verdict early Thursday evening.