PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 38-year-old Montgomery County man arrested earlier this year on accusations he paid an underage girl for nude photos is back behind bars after police said they found eight additional victims.
More than 170 new charges filed against Deren Thach, from Francis Avenue in Ambler, include rape, human trafficking and possession of child sexual abuse material.
Thach was originally arrested in March, accused of paying a Willow Grove girl he’d met through Snapchat for illicit photos, with police saying at the time they expected there to be more.
Abington police said they found eight additional underage victims, including multiple girls who said in addition to photos, Thach paid them for sex.
According to the criminal complaint, one girl told police Thach gave her and a friend alcohol and marijuana when she was 17. She thought Thach was driving them to a friend’s house. Instead, he took the girls to his apartment, where he told them he wouldn’t take them to the friend’s house until one of them had sex with him. The complaint said Thach then raped her.
The investigation is ongoing, with charging documents indicating that, out of more than $16,000 in Apple payments Thach made between Dec. 2023 and March of this year, $2,821 has so far been confirmed to have been sent to minors. According to interviews, those payments were in exchange for nude photos and videos.
Thach is being held on $1 million cash bail over the latest charges.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous story mentioned Thach as being from Willow Grove. He is from Ambler.
