SC man guilty of bribing, raping Mercer County girl, now 14

MERCER, Pa. (AP) — A South Carolina man has been convicted of twice raping a western Pennsylvania girl and then trying to bribe her to recant her story in exchange for an all-terrain vehicle.

Thirty-three-year-old James Burk II, of Murrells Inlet, S.C., remains in the Mercer County Jail Monday where he’s been held since his arrest last March.

He was convicted Friday of 23 counts including rape, statutory rape and intimidation of a witness for raping the girl between August and October 2009, when she was 12 or 13.

Prosecutors filed the witness intimidation charges based on jailhouse phone calls between Burk and a woman whom he asked to relay the bribe offer to the girl.

Burk will be sentenced June 24 in Mercer County.