The Scott Selby trial ended on June 26, 2025, with a Lancaster County jury convicting the former Lancaster city police officer of raping and sexually assaulting three underage girls during the 1990s. Andrew Scott Selby, 56, was sentenced on December 18, 2025, to 22½ to 57 years in state prison and designated a sexually violent predator.1
Who Scott Selby Is
Selby joined the Lancaster City Bureau of Police in May 1994 and left the force in August 2000, serving roughly six years at the rank of officer. After leaving law enforcement, he lived on Baumgardner Road in Pequea Township, Lancaster County. He was 56 at the time of sentencing.
What He Was Convicted Of
Prosecutors said Selby used his badge to gain access to vulnerable minors and then abused them. The three victims were girls he encountered through his police work in the 1990s. They did not know one another.
One of them, then 16, had been the victim of a separate rape. Selby was the officer assigned to investigate her case, and prosecutors said he raped her about a week after her initial assault. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lapp told the jury Selby “abused the trust and authority placed in him” and followed a “common plan” of leveraging his position to “satisfy his own sexual desires.”
The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts: one count of rape by forcible compulsion, one count of rape of a person less than 13, three counts of sexual assault, one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of a person less than 13, and one count of statutory sexual assault.
How the Case Came Together
The investigation began in March 2024, when a woman contacted police with an allegation dating to the 1990s. Detective Sergeant Jessica Higgins of the Lancaster City Bureau of Police led the probe. After the initial complaint became public, more people came forward. In total, nine reported abuse by Selby.
Selby was arrested on May 17, 2024. Investigators concluded the statute of limitations barred charges in four of the nine reported cases. Five criminal complaints were filed, and a judge dismissed two of them before trial, leaving three cases involving three victims to go to the jury.
During sentencing, Judge William P. Mahon praised ADA Lapp for telling the jury at trial that the justice system had “failed” these victims years earlier, a reference to the fact that the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office had investigated Selby roughly 25 years ago and did not prosecute at that time.
The Trial
The trial ran three days in June 2025 before Judge Mahon, a Chester County senior judge appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after every Lancaster County criminal court judge recused. Selby was represented by Scranton defense attorney Joseph D’Andrea.
On June 24, 2025, Judge Mahon found D’Andrea in criminal contempt and fined him $1,000 after the attorney made inappropriate comments about a witness’s testimony. The judge had warned him the day before. Lancaster County President Judge Leonard G. Brown III and local defense attorneys said a contempt finding against an attorney is highly unusual in the county.
The jury deliberated about four and a half hours before convicting Selby on June 26, 2025.
The Sentence
On December 18, 2025, Judge Mahon sentenced Selby to 22½ to 57 years in state prison and classified him as a sexually violent predator. ADA Lapp had argued for consecutive sentences, citing the “callousness” of the crimes.
Two victims addressed the court. The woman who had been 16 when Selby raped her while investigating her earlier assault told the judge his actions “further eroded my already distorted perception” that “nothing was safe.” She said officers “should be held to a higher standard of conduct than civilians” but that Selby “drew to us like a shark to blood.” A second victim’s letter, read aloud by ADA Lapp, said Selby had “failed” her in his role as an officer.
Selby did not speak. Judge Mahon told him, “I can’t imagine that you thought so little of [the victim], so little of yourself and so little of your fellow officers and what they represent.” Ten Lancaster city police officers attended the sentencing; Mahon acknowledged their presence, saying “one of their own has done the unthinkable.”
District Attorney Heather Adams said the sentence “brings a measure of peace to the victims who suffered at the hands of the defendant” and called it “an important steppingstone in these victims’ paths toward healing.” Police Chief Richard Mendez said, “No one is above the law, and while this has been a difficult case, we remain committed to building trust and ensuring accountability at every level of the bureau.”
The Appeal
After sentencing, Selby filed motions for a new trial, acquittal, sentence modification, and bail. On March 30, 2026, Judge Mahon denied all of them, writing that Selby “has accepted no responsibility for his conduct.” Selby filed a notice of appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court on April 24, 2026. As of mid-2026, the specific grounds for the appeal had not been filed, and the case remains pending before the appellate court.