Sean Fowler and Amber Heidel were corrections officers at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections at SCI-Huntington. In October 2022, while in the lounge area, Fowler repeatedly questioned Heidel about her injured arm, which required surgery. He nagged her about wanting to touch it, despite her discomfort and refusal. On one occasion, Fowler reached across a table, forcibly trying to pry her arm away from her body to rub it. She had to hide her arm from him on several occasions because of his attempts to touch it. On November 11, 2022, Fowler repeatedly told Heidel he had something to tell her and wanted her to go to his office. He followed her during checks, saying they were soulmates who belonged together from a past life. He grew angry at her disinterest. Later, near a five-foot-tall metal trash can, he threw or pushed it into her, causing her to stumble and bruise her hand. Fowler also told multiple people at work that Heidel’s husband abused her and her children, which was untrue. He tried to get others to report her husband to the police based on false accusations. Fowler made comments about her work pants making her look curvy and bid for another shift to continue working with her. He told her he loved her since he first saw her eyes and that her giggle excited him, something he never felt about anyone, including his wife. Fowler would express agitation whenever she mentioned receiving assistance, especially from a male. Heidel felt like she was walking on eggshells at work, anticipating further sexual harassment.
Heidel reported Fowler’s behavior and at the evidentiary hearing, Heidel testified that in October 2022, Fowler ignored her request to respect her status as a married woman and grabbed her arm despite her repeated declarations of “love for her.” She confirmed that she referred to the reported incident in the petition where Fowler grabbed her injured arm to massage it. Heidel also testified about a separate incident where Fowler “insisted that she needed a hug and grabbed hold of her and hugged her.” The trial court found Heidel credible and sufficiently asserted two episodes of “sexual violence” under the Protection of Victims of Sexual Violence or Intimidation Act (PVSVIA): Fowler forcibly grabbing her arm and massaging it, and Fowler forcibly hugging her. She was granted a Sexual Violence Protective Order (SVPO).
Fowler argued that Heidel failed to assert she was a victim of “sexual violence” as defined by the PVSVIA, and that the acts did not qualify as sexual violence because a sexual or intimate body part was not involved.
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the trial court’s grant of the SVPO. The Court held that Fowler’s acts of grabbing and rubbing Heidel’s arm and forcing a hug on her qualified as acts of sexual violence within the meaning of PVSVIA, and that a preponderance of the evidence established Heidel was at continued risk of harm from Fowler.
“As defined by the Act, ‘sexual violence’ includes the sexual offenses enumerated in Chapter 31 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code. The sexual offenses listed in Chapter 31 include the offense of indecent assault. Thus, indecent assault constitutes ‘sexual violence’ for purposes of the Act. A person commits indecent assault when he touches a sexual or intimate part of the body without consent for the purposes of gratifying sexual desire.
“In this case, the trial court applied the above-described rubric of the PVSVIA and determined that Fowler’s touching of Heidel constituted ‘indecent contact’ as proscribed under the crime of indecent assault because each instance involved the nonconsensual touching of an intimate part of her body.”
Applying this standard to the facts, the trial court found that when Fowler forcibly pried Heidel’s arm away from her torso and began to rub it, his hands must have encircled the inner, upper arm she was keeping close to her torso and chest. The trial court noted that this part of the body is not touched, embraced, rubbed, or “massaged” absent the possibility of an acceptable context, and is typically reserved to those engaged in consensual close, personal, intimate relationships. The Superior Court found no error in that determination.
Fowler also argued that Heidel failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she was at continued risk of harm from him. The Court disagreed, “Taken as a whole, the evidence in the record establishes that Fowler is sexually and romantically obsessed with Heidel, has a history of attempting to force her to bend to his will, has physically assaulted her in anger for not acquiescing to his advances, and has lashed out toward others involved in the situation when it has not gone his way in a manner that has left many people concerned about how far he might go and what he might do next. That is sufficient to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Heidel is at continued risk of harm from Fowler. To hold otherwise would ignore the reality of the situation.” Therefore, the Superior Court affirmed the order granting the SVPO.
Heidel v. Fowler, 325 A.3d 816 (Pa. Sup. Ct. 2024).