A former Warminster cop has suddenly withdrawn his plea in a decades-old sex-assault case
James Carey, 54, was scheduled to be sentenced on rape and assault charges involving five teenage boys. But, abruptly, his lawyers filed a motion to withdraw his plea, saying he's innocent.
A former Warminster police officer who pleaded no contest earlier this year to sexually assaulting five teens he befriended during his time on the force now wants to withdraw that plea and contest the charges at trial.
Lawyers for James Carey, 54, filed a surprise motion to withdraw his plea late Wednesday. In the brief filing, Sarah Webster and Josh Buchanan wrote that Carey asserts that he is innocent.
In pleading no contest, Carey did not admit guilt but did not contest the charges or present a defense.
Webster declined to comment at length Thursday, saying only that she looks forward to defending the motion at a hearing before Bucks County Judge Wallace Bateman, who accepted Carey’s plea Oct. 27.
A spokesperson for Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Thursday that prosecutors plan to argue against the withdrawal. The plea was negotiated with the office just days before Carey’s trial on dozens of criminal charges, including rape, sexual assault, and corruption of minors, was set to begin.
Similarly, the motion to rescind it comes shortly before Carey’s scheduled sentencing in the case, which had been set for Monday afternoon in Doylestown.
Carey’s plea was open, meaning there was no guaranteed jail sentence attached to it. Based on the charges, prosecutors said, he faced the possibility of decades in prison.
For years, Carey was overly friendly and jocular with young boys, according to court filings. Between 1988 and 2000, while serving as a resource officer with the D.A.R.E. antidrug program in the Centennial School District, Carey groped and forced five boys to perform sex acts, prosecutors said.
Some of the boys met Carey through his volunteer work at a neighborhood rec center, and told prosecutors he would make excuses to isolate them, sometimes under threat of arresting them for minor drug offenses. He acted as a father figure, they said, and seemed to target boys who came from broken homes or had troubled upbringings.
Carey was fired from the department in 2005 for mishandling a case but won his job back through arbitration. He later retired in 2009 and moved to the Jersey Shore.
Police investigated reports of predatory behavior by Carey in 2001 and 2006, but no charges were filed. The accusers told prosecutors they had been reluctant to talk about the abuse out of fear and shame.
In 2020, one of the alleged victims, now an adult, came forward to county detectives, and a new investigation was opened.
» READ MORE: ‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing’: For years, a Warminster police officer sexually assaulted troubled teens, DA says
For the better part of a year, investigators traced Carey’s decades-old behavior, tracking down the five alleged victims as well as dozens of other witnesses who described his inappropriate activity.
Weintraub, in announcing Carey’s arrest last year, described him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In October, when Carey entered the plea, prosecutors said the abuse had deeply affected the five alleged victims
, who they said found comfort in seeing Carey face justice.
Now, the stage is set for a potentially lengthy trial to decide the former officer’s fate.