Lancaster County women posted video of toddler smoking a vape: police

Elena Zaharchuk (left), 18, and Naomi Wenger (right), 21, were charged for taking a video of a two-year-old smoking a vape and posting it online.

Two Lancaster County women have been charged with endangering a child after police say they found an online video of the two of them making a 2-year-old smoke a vaping device.

Elena Zaharchuk, 18, of Manheim Township, and Naomi Wenger, 21, of Strasburg Borough, were charged after Strasburg Borough officers found a video Aug. 25 of the toddler holding a vaping device. The toddler sucks on the vaping device and quickly coughs out vapor. The video has a caption reading “Kids starting young.”

The officer watching the footage recognized the apartment and went Wenger’s residence, meeting Zaharchuk and Wenger. Zaharchuk admitted posting the video. Both said they did not know the toddler knew how to use the vaping device and took it away afterward.

Both were charged with one count each of endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors. Zaharchuk has been released on $25,000 bail, and Wenger is in Lancaster County Prison on $50,000 bail. Zaharchuk is represented by attorney Robert Beyer, who declined to comment.

The day before she was charged for child endangerment, Wenger was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to multiple terroristic threats charges. In February, she called in three bomb threats to Martic Elementary School in southern Lancaster County, where she worked as a substitute teacher’s aide.

The women are scheduled for a preliminary hearing before District Judge William Benner on Sept. 7.

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