Raymond “R.C.” Horsch cut a deal with federal prosecutors and fed them information about criminal activity in order to greatly reduce his own prison sentence in a 2009 drug and gun case, court records show.
Horsch was facing the prospect of a 15-year minimum sentence after pleading guilty to manufacturing marijuana and possession of firearms connected to a drug trafficking crime. But a plea deal, brokered in 2012, allowed Horsch to secure just four and half years in prison, thanks to the information he offered to prosecutors, according to a new filing in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The details provided in a Tuesday court filing, in response to motion filed by The Inquirer to unseal records in the 2009 drug case, offer new insight into Horsch’s dealings with law enforcement. They also show that, while Horsch bragged publicly about being an international criminal and a violent pornographer who rejected societal norms, he was also willing to feed valuable information to federal investigators in exchange for favorable treatment.
The case overlapped with Horsch’s conviction in an unrelated attempt to lure a 9-year-old girl into his vehicle in Kensington. Horsch sought a new trial in that case, initiated by the Philadelphia District Attorney in 2010, and the charges collapsed after the victim declined to appear a second time. It was not clear if federal prosecutors in the drug and gun case were aware of the other case in local court — or whether it factored at all into their decision to offer him a cooperating plea deal.
Many of Horsch’s prior criminal cases have come under intense scrutiny since the pornographer, who died last year at age 82, emerged at the center of a sprawling missing persons investigation involving at least seven women who are now missing or presumed dead.
This month, an attorney for The Inquirer asked a federal judge to make public 14 sealed records from the 2009 case, arguing that they are now of public interest. Those records include a transcript of Horsch’s sentencing hearing and a motion by the government that sought to reduce Horsch’s sentence in exchange for cooperation.
In a response filed Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ashenfelter agreed to unseal the majority of the records, but opposed the release of the transcript and motion, indicating they contained information detailing the extent of Horsch’s cooperation with authorities.
“Raymond Horsch is dead,” Ashenfelter wrote. “The fact that he entered a cooperation plea agreement with the government need not be kept hidden any longer. However, the essence of the information he provided to the government during his cooperation is not subject to disclosure or public consumption.”
Ashenfelter argued that the federal criminal justice system must protect and reward cooperating witnesses, and that while Horsch “did not offer testimony against any criminal defendant,” the transcript of his sentencing was “law enforcement sensitive” and should remain sealed. The former prosecutor who handled the case, Liz Abrams, referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Inquirer plans to push for the remaining records to be unsealed.
Behind the missing women mystery
Read more of The Inquirer’s reporting on the sprawling missing persons investigation centered around the late pornographer Raymond “R.C.” Horsch and his son, Eugene:
- How a pornographer’s violent art complicates Philly missing women mystery
-
Raymond Horsch had access to a Kensington crematorium linked to illegal body parts sales, years before investigation
-
‘Consumed by anger’: Inside the 1985 psych profile of Raymond Horsch
- A troubling photo of a missing woman appeared on Raymond Horsch’s erotic website, years before police investigated
- Police grapple with a lack of bodies in disturbing Olney investigation — and for families, a lack of closure
- Two women appear dead in “graphic and dark” videos recovered from Olney house, police say
Exactly what Horsch told the federal prosecutors to secure his lighter sentence is not publicly available. Richard Zack, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, said it should have resulted in a significant arrest or conviction for the prosecution to justify such a generous plea deal, particularly since Horsch had recently been convicted of corrupting a minor.
Even though the child-luring charges fell apart on retrial, Zack said the government should have considered those allegations when weighing Horsch’s credibility and his role in providing information in exchange for a reduced sentence.
“I think there are two questions: was he vetted properly as a cooperator, and secondly, is the cooperation they got worth the bargain?” said Zack, now a partner at the Troutman Pepper Locke law firm. “It’s a very sordid tale and the government should look at it with a lot of scrutiny.”
Horsch fought both criminal cases almost in parallel.
Just months before the Bucks County drug bust, Horsch was arrested in March 2009 by 24th District police in Philadelphia for allegedly attempting to lure a nine-year-old Kensington girl into his Jeep Wrangler. The vehicle contained binoculars, a high powered photo lens and a condom.
A few months later, on July 22, 2009, an intoxicated woman who was later determined to be a live-in sex worker hired by Horsch called 911 from his Chalfont home, believing that a burglar was on premises.
Township police searched the home but failed to locate an intruder. Instead, they discovered 455 marijuana plants in the basement, as well as two illegal sawed-off shotguns. Investigators later recovered a trove of homemade pornography from the home, including photos of bleeding women and a video labeled “Lora rape.”
The drug case was referred for federal prosecution, and Horsch was charged in December 2009 with possession with intent to distribute and firearms offenses.
He was in federal custody in Bucks County Prison in January 2010, the same month he appeared in Philadelphia Municipal Court to hear testimony from the child victim in his luring case.
Horsch was convicted on the misdemeanor corruption charge in Philadelphia in March 2010. It remains unclear when the second trial took place: Horsch later secured an expungement and the court records are no longer public.
In January 2011, he changed his plea to guilty in the drug and gun case. Prosecutors appear to have filed a motion to reduce his sentence in July 2012.
Horsch was ultimately sentenced to four and a half years in prison, serving concurrent sentences on the drug and gun charges. He was transferred from federal detention to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in Manhattan, in November 2012 and moved to a halfway house about three months later.
He was released in June 2013 and spent four years on probation.
Horsch returned to prowling the streets of Kensington in search of models for his pornography. He lured women in addiction with drugs and cash to his Olney home — at least five of whom police now believe died or were killed there as early as 2016, based on photos and videos on hard drives recovered from the property. Two other women, Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale, who were reported last seen at Horsch’s 417 W. Chew Avenue address, remain missing.
Horsch’s former attorney, Jerome Brown, who handled the 2009 drug case and now represents his son Eugene Horsch, did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors in the 2009 drug case stated in court filings that they were aware that Horsch had been convicted in 1985 on a charge of manufacturing methamphetamine.
In that case, too, Horsch received a light sentence. After his 1977 arrest at the Olney home, he fled to California and then New Zealand, assuming an alias to escape prosecution.
After the ruse was discovered by authorities in New Zealand, he fled again to Florida where he was apprehended by federal authorities in 1984 and extradited to Philadelphia.
At the time of his guilty plea in 1985, federal law set no mandatory minimum prison term for manufacturing methamphetamine. His defense attorney commissioned a psychological exam, and his evaluator testified that Horsch was a highly intelligent and prodigious worker who would not be reformed by lengthy incarceration. Family and colleagues submitted letters to the judge pleading for leniency.
He was sentenced to four years in federal prison but only served two before his release in 1987.
The Inquirer’s motion to release the 2009 case records remains pending before U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond.
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
This story has been updated to correct the name of the federal prosecutor who filed the government’s response.
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