Ex-Warminster Officer Faces 122 Counts In Child-Sex Abuse Case

WARMINSTER, PA — A former police officer in Bucks County abused his position of trust to sexually assault four teen boys, some of them as young as 13, while working with the D.A.R.E. program and in other youth-oriented roles, prosecutors said Wednesday.

James Christopher Carey, 53, of Cape May Court House, N.J., was arraigned Wednesday on charges including involuntary deviate intercourse, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor.

In all, he faces 122 counts.

All four boys were assaulted when Carey was an officer with the Warminster Township Police Department, prosecutors say.

The charges are the result of a grand jury investigation and come after one of the victims came forward in May 2020, saying Carey assaulted him after his mother had turned to the then-officer to help her troubled son.

"He was a veritable wolf in sheep's clothing, preying on those who trusted in him — on our children," said Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub.

Carey was free Wednesday after posting 10 percent of $100,000 bail. At a news conference, Weintraub said his office was disappointed and surprised that Carey was granted bail at that level.

"We argued vigorously for bail," Weintraub said. "We fulfilled our function and it's up to a district judge."

The District Attorney's Office said two of the teen boys who have come forward were 13 years old when Carey began abusing them.

Prosecutors say Carey was the D.A.R.E. officer at Log College Middle School, where he met one of the 13-year-olds. He met the other, they said, at the township recreation center, when the first instance of sexual abuse began under the guise of a police patdown.

The fourth victim was a neighbor of Carey's in the Speedway section of Warminster who also turned to Carey as a mentor, Weintraub said.

"This victim was looking for a father figure, a role model, somebody he could trust," he said. "Instead, he got James Carey."

In the recreation center incident, the victim told investigators Carey, in uniform, confronted him in a bathroom after finding marijuana. Carey then locked the bathroom door and conducted a patdown which led to him performing a sex act on the teen, prosecutors say.

That victim accused Carey of going on to sexually assault him three to five more times, all while in uniform.

The second accuser who was 13 at the time told investigators Carey would let him drive his car in parking lots, buy things for him and let him and friends drink and smoke at his house. Carey went on to abuse that teen repeatedly between 1991-96, according to the charges.

Another said Carey invited him to his home to play video games. When Carey made advances and the teen tried to leave, Carey blocked the door and continued to touch him intimately, prosecutors say.

Carey was a police officer for Warminster from 1989 to 2009. Before that, he worked briefly for the North Wales Police Department in Montgomery County (June 1988 to August 1988) and the Warwick Township Police Department (July 1988 to May 1989).

According to prosecutors, Carey was investigated in 2001, while he was employed with Warminster Police, for contact he had with a 17-year-old boy. Because the age of consent at the time was 16, and because complete information about the situation could not be found, no charges were filed, according to Weintraub.

Carey was fired, but successfully won his job back in arbitration and retired from the department in 2009 as a corporal.

While he was fired, Carey worked in New Jersey at the Driftwood campground in Cape May County, N.J. and for the U.S. Coast Guard, Weintraub said, eventually being fired from both jobs. After retiring in Warminster, he worked as a school bus driver in Cape May County before retiring.

Prosecutors say the investigation connected Carey to another man — Charles "Chuck" Goodenough, 60, of Warminster, through a shared connection to the Boy Scouts and the Warminster Township Fire Department. Goodenough and Carey together ran the Fire Explorers program.

On Feb. 26, Bucks County detectives served a search warrant at Goodenough's Warminster home and seized electronic devices. Three days later, on March 1, Goodenough was found dead in his home of an apparent suicide by drug overdose.

Prosecutors called the alleged victims courageous for coming forward and encouraged anyone else who may have been victimized to do the same.

"We will help you get justice," Weintraub said. "We can help you heal."