By Tasha Kates

Published: May 6, 2008

A Connecticut teenager who told police she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the social networking site Facebook actually met him through a money-based matchmaking Web site, police testified Monday.
Albemarle police detectives said that James Gardner Dennis and the then-17-year-old girl first met on http://www.seeking
arrangement.com, a site that matches “wealthy benefactors” with other men and women. Dennis, 34, sent the girl a plane ticket to come to Charlottesville, authorities said, and after they met Feb. 20 she accused him of sexual abuse.
Following an hour-long hearing in Albemarle Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Monday, a judge certified four felony charges against Dennis — rape, abduction, forcible sodomy and enticement of a minor through the use of communications systems. The case is scheduled to go before a grand jury next month.
Albemarle police Sgt. Pam Greenwood testified Monday that she responded to the Turtle Creek condominiums after an abduction was reported. Greenwood said she took the teen to the police department, where Detective Eliza Espinoza said she interviewed the girl about what had happened.
“She seemed upset, kind of lost,” Espinoza said.
Espinoza later took her to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where the teenager started talking with a nurse about what had happened, the detective said. Espinoza said the victim told the nurse that Dennis had identified himself as “Justin” online, and that she had told him she was 17.
According to authorities, the teenager’s Seeking Arrangement profile identified her as a 21-year-old waitress with a high school education. Detectives said her Facebook and Seeking Arrangement profiles were deleted soon after the incidents were reported.
The teenager told detectives that Dennis abused her a few times before the two went to Starbucks and Harris Teeter.
“She said she had a chance to get away, but she was scared,” Espinoza said. “She told me he threatened her.”
The teenager told Espinoza that she was abused again when the two returned to the apartment. She called 911 soon after Dennis left the apartment alone to run errands, a detective testified.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford said while authorities are unsure what Dennis said to the girl online, it didn’t warrant sexual abuse.
“None of that means she agreed to have sex with this man,” Lunsford said.
The teenager came to the Charlottesville area with a backpack and a laptop inside, authorities said. During a line of questioning, defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana said the girl was videotaped in an interview room “pulling the cord” and “[ramming the laptop] on the table.” Espinoza said she searched the girl’s bag when her mother arrived, but was unable to find the cord for the laptop, which the teenager said she didn’t use to contact Dennis.
Dennis also faces about 25 unrelated indictments in Albemarle Circuit Court on charges of distribution and production of child pornography.