Cops: Woman asked girl, 13, to be stripper

YORK, Pa. (AP) — A woman has been charged with trying to exploit children after police said she attempted to recruit a 13-year-old girl as a stripper.

Kathy Lynne Hartman, 40, of Mechanicsburg, was charged Thursday by West Manchester Township police with criminal attempt to commit sexual exploitation of children and other offenses.

Hartman approached the girl Sept. 12 inside a bathroom at the York Fair, police said. The woman told the girl she was pretty and gave her a business card for a strip club in Adams County, according to authorities.

A bathroom attendant told police earlier that day that she heard a woman tell two young girls — ages 10 and 11 — that she was a stripper and could teach them the “tricks of the trade.” The attendant intervened, telling the girls to go to their mothers and ordering the woman out of the bathroom.

On Sept. 13, the 13-year-old girl told police that she was also solicited by the woman at the fair.

Police said the 10- and 11-year-olds have not spoken to authorities.