Woman allegedly groped by former Delco official said he made her feel like a ‘piece of meat’

Days after Tim Boyce allegedly groped and forcibly kissed one of his subordinates at Delaware County’s Department of Emergency Services in January, the woman texted him to say he had made her feel “like a vulnerable piece of meat,” according to evidence presented in court this week.

“You felt like you had all the power to come into my personal space and everything would just be fine because it was what you wanted,” the woman wrote in text messages to Boyce she read during his preliminary hearing on charges including indecent assault.

“You never once thought about if I would be OK or not,” she said.

Boyce, 61, was fired from his position as the head of emergency services in May, a month after the woman filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the alleged groping. In that complaint, the woman said she had been hired by Boyce as a part-time coordinator in early December. On Jan. 30, he called her into his office, grabbed her face and tried to kiss her, the woman said.

She turned away at the last moment, and Boyce kissed her cheek. Afterward, she said Boyce told her she “has a great ass,” asked to touch it and then groped her when she didn’t respond.

The woman testified Wednesday that she broke down emotionally after the encounter and told Boyce she was quitting through the text exchange read in court.

Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, after being made aware of the allegations, referred the case to the state Attorney General’s Office due to a conflict of interest over work his office had done with Boyce.

The criminal charges were filed a week after Boyce was fired.

District Judge Walter Strohl held Boyce over for trial on all those charges after an hours-long hearing Wednesday. The proceeding became heated at times as Boyce’s attorney, Andrew Edelberg, argued that prosecutors had failed to properly investigate the accusations against his client.

“The police have the burden of proof,” said Edelberg, who questioned the way that detectives with the state Attorney General’s Office handled the case, including failing to collect DNA or eyewitness evidence.

“They are attacking a man’s 40-year reputation, that he should be a Megan’s Law sex offender, because they allege there was indecent contact. It’s incumbent on them to prove there was actual contact.”

Edelberg also doubted the credibility of the victim, whom he asserted had filed the complaint after complaining to Boyce about her proposed salary for her pending promotion to full-time employment status. The woman, he said, also had been the subject of a state EEOC complaint by another employee of Boyce’s, who had said she was unqualified for her position, according to Edelberg.

Deputy Attorney General Madelyn Abry objected to Edelberg’s comments, calling them “serious accusations... that have no basis.” The prosecutor accused him of pandering to reporters attending the hearing and of “creating a circus in this courtroom.”

Strohl was not swayed by Edelberg’s attempts to have the case dismissed, and told him his concerns would be raised more appropriately at trial.

“If you have a witness who says ‘I was there and it didn’t happen’ or a witness that says ‘I have DNA that proves this didn’t happen,’ that’s fine,’” Strohl said. “But to cloud the issue by saying this detective or the other detective did not do certain things, that’s the commonwealth’s problem, and it doesn’t help you at all.”

Boyce faces another preliminary hearing next week on similar charges after a second female employee told investigators Boyce sexually assaulted her during two incidents in his office.