WAYNE COUNTY — On March 10, 2025, Wayne County District Attorney A.G. Howell announced the arrest of Jennifer Ryan, age 40 and Anthony Ryan, age 43 of Texas Township, Wayne County, Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Ryan was charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child, graded as a misdemeanor of the 1st degree and one count of false reports to law enforcement graded as a misdemeanor of the 2nd degree.

Anthony Ryan was charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child, graded as a misdemeanor of the 1st degree, one count of identity theft graded as a misdemeanor of the 1st degree, one count of tampering with physical evidence graded as a misdemeanor of the 2nd degree and three counts of false reports to law enforcement graded as a misdemeanor of the 2nd degree.

According to the criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause filed by Wayne County Detective Michael McMorrow and Wayne County Detective Michael Brown, this investigation began on June 11, 2024 when Jennifer Ryan obtained a Protection from Intimidation Order against a female identified as Lana Walker. The order protected Jennifer Ryan and her children and prevented Lana Walker from harassing, stalking or threatening them.

Following the courts approval of the order, Jennifer and Anthony Ryan reported to the Wayne County Detectives that Lana Walker violated the order by posting lude and vulgar content online about their children and expressed they wanted to press charges.

The Wayne County Detectives opened a criminal investigation and executed multiple search warrants and discovered the IP address used to post the content online actually came back toennifer and Anthony Ryan. Once Lana Walker was eliminated as a suspect and the Ryan’s were confronted they stated that their child was responsible for posting the content online.

Detectives then interviewed the child involved and learned that Jennifer and Anthony Ryan implicated their son of a crime he did not commit in an attempt to conceal their own involvement.

The actions of Jennifer and Anthony Ryan caused detectives to put aside other important cases to investigate a hoax and wasted police resources.
Jennifer and Anthony Ryan turned themself into Magisterial District Judge Bonnie L. Carney on March 6, 2025. A preliminary arraignment was conducted and both Jennifer and Anthony Ryan were released on $50,000.00 unsecured bail. Jennifer and Anthony Ryan are due back in court on March 12, 2025.

*The filing of criminal charges is not evidence of guilt but simply a description of the charge made by the Commonwealth against a defendant. A charged Defendant is presumed innocent until a jury returns a unanimous finding that the Commonwealth has proven the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or until the defendant enters a guilty plea to the charges.