800-656-4673<\/a>.<\/p>\nOfficials said a joint investigation by the Middletown Township Police Department and the Newtown Township Police Department began in February 2025 when police received a report of suspected child sexual abuse that occurred at a home in Langhorne, Middletown Township.<\/p>\n
The victim reported that the sexual abuse happened between the years of 1998 and 2003 when he was a child and Shay was his private piano instructor. Officials said the lessons occurred at the victim\u2019s residence and the abuse progressed over the years.<\/p>\n
The abuse began with Shay massaging the victim\u2019s wrists, which he described as warmups before piano lessons. Shay then massaged the victim\u2019s forearms and worked his way up his arms and neck.<\/p>\n
As time went on, Shay moved the warmups from the piano bench to a couch, and massaged more parts of the victim’s body. Shay also told the victim never to speak to anyone about the warmups.<\/p>\n
The victim said the inappropriate contact happened between 30 and 50 times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis began in the 90s and was continuing up until the present,\u201d Bucks County First Assistant District Attorney Kristin McElroy said. One victim who had \u2013 this occurred back in the 90s \u2013 sort of had his moment and he went to the Middletown Township Police. From there I really give the credit to law enforcement, Detective Beck, who did an incredible job of sort of peeling away to find other students who had lessons with him and it was from there that this began.\u201d<\/p>\n
A second victim, also from Langhorne, came forward and said Shay was his piano teacher when he was a child between 1998 and 2003. The victim also shared that Shay massaged him, claiming it would help with playing the piano.<\/p>\n
During the massage, Shay pulled up the victim\u2019s elastic waistband and pressed his abdomen just above his genitals. The skin-to-skin contact happened between three and five times. <\/p>\n
A third victim told police that Shay was his piano instructor in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he was a child living in Newtown Township. During the first lessons, the victim said Shay massaged his back and other parts of his body. He also asked the victim to lie on the piano bench, and Shay massaged the victim’s groin over his clothes.<\/p>\n
A fourth victim reported being eight years old when he had Shay as a piano instructor in Newtown Township. The victim told police Shay massaged his inner and upper thighs, claiming it would help relieve tension in the area.<\/p>\n
Police said there were at least 14 other victims. Shay showed no emotion as the 18 victims — now young men — confronted him directly in court on Tuesday and read their impact statements before his sentencing. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see this level of course of conduct again beginning in the mid-90s up and through you know Timothy Shay is an adult man,\u201d McElroy said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe that this would have stopped but for the police intervention so again I give so much credit to those initial young men that came forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his sentencing, Shay will be listed as a registered sex offender for life. <\/p>\n
After Shay’s arrest, investigators said they believed there were other victims and asked for them to come forward.\u00a0Anyone with information can contact Middletown Township Detective John Beck at 215-750-3872.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Bucks-County-District-Attorneys-Office.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tBucks County District Attorney\u2019s OfficeBucks County District Attorney\u2019s Office<\/p>\n
Timothy Shay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: The details of this story are graphic and may be disturbing for some readers. A Bucks County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[197,6376,28,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-191051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-bucks-county","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}