Bail Raised Dramatically For Ex-Cop In Bucks Sex Abuse Case

WARMINSTER, PA — A Bucks County judge on Tuesday dramatically increased bail for a former Warminster police officer charged with the sexual abuse of four teen boys as young as 13.

James Christopher Carey, 53, of Cape May Court House, N.J., was arrested earlier this month and faces 122 counts on charges that include statutory sexual assault and involuntary deviate intercourse. On Tuesday, President Judge Wallace H. Bateman, Jr., raised his bail to $250,000 cash, calling the 10 percent of $100,000 bail initially set in the case "woefully inadequate."

Bateman also added new provisions to the bail agreement, ordering Carey to surrender his passport and police credentials and have no contact with minors.

Wednesday morning, court documents listed Carey's bail status as "partial posting." A spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney's Office said he remained at Bucks County Correctional Facility as of about noon.

Bucks County prosecutors had requested bail be increased for Carey on April 8, one day after he was arraigned and almost immediately posted his original bail.

On Tuesday, Bucks County Detective Greg Beidler testified that investigators received several new leads in the case after an April 7 news conference about it. He said detectives are investigating claims from potential new victims of Carey now.

In a news release, the DA's office said it "strongly believes" there are even more victims in the case. They're asking anyone with information to call Bucks County Detectives at 215-340-8216 or 215-348-6504.

Carey worked for Warminster Township from May 1989 until he retired from the police force in May of 2009. Prosecutors say he abused all four boys while he was an officer.

According to the charges against him, Carey met his victims through a variety of youth-oriented roles, including serving as an anti-drug D.A.R.E. officer at Log College Middle School. Two of his four accusers say they were 13-years-old when the abuse began.

The charges were the result of a grand jury investigation. The incidents his accusers describe include one boy saying Carey locked him in the bathroom of a Warminster community center and patted him down in a drug search before eventually performing a sex act on him.

"A police officer’s creed is to protect and serve his community," said Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub. "In a perverse and criminal dereliction of his duty, James Carey instead took advantage of his power and credibility while on the job as a police officer to sexually abuse our community’s most vulnerable: our children."

Prosecutors say their 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 township's 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.