A Centre Region man who was out on bail for the alleged sexual assault and strangulation of a woman earlier this year is facing new charges accusing him of assaulting two more women.
Ferguson Township police arrested Moncef Guen Jr., 24, on Wednesday after a woman reported he strangled her and then forced her to perform oral sex at his apartment late Tuesday night, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Guen was arraigned by District Judge Don Hahn and was released from the Centre County Correctional Facility on Thursday after posting $85,000 bail. But he was taken into custody again on Thursday afternoon when Court of Common Pleas Judge Julia Rater revoked bail on the earlier charges following an emergency hearing requested by the Centre County District Attorney’s Office.
State College police, meanwhile, filed additional charges on Thursday afternoon accusing Guen of the sexually assaulting another woman.
District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said law enforcement had initially requested that Hahn deny bail at the preliminary arraignment on Wednesday “based on the obvious risk to the community.”
“I don’t understand why that request would not have been granted given the nature of the charges and the fact that in a relatively short period of time he had done it a second time,” Cantorna told StateCollege.com prior to the bail modification hearing.
Guen was first arrested in May by State College police on charges accusing him of sexually assaulting and strangling a woman who came to his apartment in December 2022 after they met through a social media app.
He was charged then with felony counts of sexual assault and strangulation and misdemeanor counts of indecent assault and simple assault. Guen was arraigned at the time by District Judge Steven Lachman and released on $100,000 unsecured bail.
Guen was awaiting trial in that case when he was arrested on Wednesday after the second woman told police that Guen assaulted her.
She said when she arrived at his apartment, Guen first took her cell phone and began to block all of her male contacts on Snapchat. After she told him they should stop seeing each other, Guen became upset, put his hand around her neck and began to squeeze, making her unable to breathe, according to the affidavit.
Guen apologized for strangling her, saying he was “bipolar and manic,” before sexually assaulting her, police wrote.
Officers observed bruises on the woman’s neck and jaw and an abrasion on her lip, according to the affidavit.
In that case he is charged with felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault and strangulation and a misdemeanor count of indecent assault. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 9.
Guen has not yet been arraigned on the third set of charges filed by State College police on Thursday. They include felony counts of sexual assault, aggravated assault and carrying a firearm without a license and a misdemeanor count of unlawful restraint.
The criminal complaint for those charges was not immediately available. A court docket lists the offense date as Nov. 1, 2023.
