DANVERS, Massachusetts — A 19-year-old woman who thought she was meeting a young man she’d encountered on a social media app Sunday night instead found herself alone in a hotel room with a man twice her age.
That man, Brendon Ireland, 42, of Lincoln, Maine, is now facing a charge of indecent assault and battery after the woman told police he sexually assaulted her.
The woman told police that she was on the social networking and dating website Skout when she started communicating with someone she believed to be a young man named “Jake.”
The two exchanged photos and agreed to meet Sunday evening in Danvers, at the Friday’s on Route 1.
But when “Jake” walked up to her car, the woman admitted she was somewhat surprised to see someone much older than she thought, she told police.
Despite “feeling somewhat uneasy,” she told officers, she agreed to go to Ireland’s hotel room in the adjacent Marriott Residence Inn.
That’s where, it turns out, Ireland was staying while working on the new Salem Harbor Station, police later learned.
The woman said that the two watched an episode of “Law and Order.” At some point, Ireland offered to put lotion on her sunburn.
The woman told police that Ireland then touched her inappropriately, convinced her to engage in a sexual act and then began another sexual act, during which the woman told him to stop. She said he did not.
Afterward, the woman said Ireland gave her $100 and offered her his Surface Pro laptop, which she refused.
The woman called police from the parking lot of Costco, next to the hotel.
Police confronted Ireland in the hotel. He initially denied that he’d even met the woman, police said, then acknowledged that they had met, but said they had just talked and kissed.
Ireland pleaded not guilty to the charge during his arraignment Monday in Salem District Court, where prosecutors sought $5,000 cash bail.
His attorney, Thomas Gately, said Ireland maintains that the contact between the two was consensual and that the two walked to and out of the hotel together.
Ireland is a father of four, said the lawyer, with no history of sexual offenses or violence on his record.
Judge Robert Brennan released Ireland, who was still barefoot, from custody, with an order that he stay away from the woman and not try to contact her.
A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Aug. 15.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.