NORRISTOWN -- A Lower Pottsgrove man has admitted exploiting his 11-year-old stepdaughter by secretly videotaping her nude body in their home. The man’s actions came to light after the girl discovered the videotape and a small camera hidden in a heater in the bathroom of the home.

The girl was so distraught by the discovery that she threw the videotape in a wooded area near her home so no one would find it, court documents indicate.

The 40-year-old man, whose name is being withheld by The Mercury in order to protect the identity of the girl, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court on Monday to two felony counts of sexual abuse of children.

The open plea means the man has no deals with prosecutors regarding his potential sentence.

Judge Richard J. Hodgson will have sole responsibility in fashioning the man’s punishment when he’s sentenced later this year.

The man, who is represented by defense lawyer Peter H. Thomas, faces a possible maximum sentence of 8½ to 17 years in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Wendy Demchick-Alloy said she will argue for jail time against the man.

"It’s a sad day when a little girl can’t feel safe and secure in the bathroom of her own home. It’s a hideous violation of a child’s or anybody’s privacy. It doesn’t get much more perverted than that," Demchick-Alloy said. "Is nowhere safe?"

Now that he’s pleaded guilty, the man also must undergo an evaluation by Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Assessment Board to determine if he’s a sexually violent predator under Megan’s Law.

Those determined to be sexually violent predators face a lifetime requirement of having to report their addresses to state police. The communities in which the offender lives are also notified about the offender’s whereabouts.

The man, who remains free on $20,000 own recognizance bail while awaiting his sentencing date, was ordered to have no contact with his stepdaughter or her family.

Court documents filed by Lower Pottsgrove police indicate the girl discovered the videotape in her home last October. When she viewed the tape she found it depicted her disrobing, getting in and out of the shower and using the toilet.

"(The girl) said that from examination of the tape she was able to determine the angle from which the video had been taken," Lower Pottsgrove Detective Michael Foltz wrote in the criminal complaint.

Launching her own investigation, the girl uncovered a small camera hidden in a bathroom baseboard heater and a cord traveling through the wall to the back of a VCR in her stepfather’s bedroom, police said.

After discarding the tape in a nearby wooded area, the girl was confronted by her stepfather about the whereabouts of the tape. However, the girl refused to reveal the tape’s location, police said.

"She was clearly traumatized by this and wanted the whole ordeal to never be found out," Demchick-Alloy said.

The girl eventually confided in an adult neighbor, retrieved the tape from the woods and turned it over to the neighbor. When police retrieved the damaged videotape from the neighbor they repaired and reviewed it.

Court documents indicate authorities found 16 separate video clips of the girl in various states of undress while she was in the bathroom. The camera angle was changed on nine occasions in order to capture different views of the girl’s nude body, police said.

"No other persons were depicted in this film and it appeared as if the camera would be turned on when she entered the bathroom on each occasion and turned off when she exited," Foltz wrote in the criminal complaint, alleging the stepfather filmed the girl for his sexual gratification.

When police informed the girl’s mother about the allegations, the mother allowed police to search the home. Police retrieved a 12-volt power adapter that was attached to a VCR in the stepfather’s bedroom.

An expert in video surveillance equipment said such power adaptors are commonly used to power cameras, "that are routinely used for surreptitious video recording purposes," according to the criminal complaint.