{"id":225027,"date":"2026-06-22T15:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/225027\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T15:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:56:09","slug":"lehigh-co-man-convicted-of-raping-teen-he-took-to-mexico-found-dead-in-cell-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/225027\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Co. man, convicted of raping teen he took to Mexico, found dead in cell \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Lehigh County man who was found guilty of rape after he was accused of sexually molesting a teen friend of his step-daughter<\/a> over the course of several years — including being discovered with the victim in Mexico by federal agents at one point — was found dead in his prison cell overnight, officials said. <\/p>\n

On Monday, the Lehigh County Coroner’s Office said Kevin Esterly, 53, of Whitehall Township, was found unresponsive in a single cell at the Lehigh County Jail at about 2:16 a.m. <\/p>\n

\tIf you or someone you know is in crisis, call\u00a0or text\u00a0988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u00a0or chat live at\u00a0988lifeline.org<\/a>. You can also visit\u00a0SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources<\/a>\u00a0for additional\u00a0support.<\/p>\n

He was taken to a nearby hospital where, officials said, he was pronounced. <\/p>\n

Though the coroner’s office did not disclose a cause of death for Esterly, the office did say an autopsy was done on Monday and Esterly’s manner of death has been ruled a suicide. <\/p>\n

An investigation into Esterly’s death was still underway, officials said. <\/p>\n

Esterly had been incarcerated after being found guilty in March of rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and endangering the welfare of children.<\/p>\n

At his trial, a victim told the court that she was 8-years-old when she first met Esterly as a friend of his step-daughter. When she was 13-years-old, the woman — now 24-years-old — told the court that Esterly began to sexually assault her after plying her with drugs and alcohol. <\/p>\n

The abuse, she said, continued for several years.<\/p>\n

According to the woman, Esterly gave her cocaine and methamphetamine to keep her awake during school because she “would be up with him all night,” during the abuses. <\/p>\n

Esterly was later arrested after federal agents found him with the victim — who was 16-years-old at the time — in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in 2018. <\/p>\n

At that time, he was convicted of corruption of minors and sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison. But, his sexual abuse of the victim was not initially disclosed.<\/p>\n

Allentown Police received a new report of Esterly’s sexual assaults in February of last year, which led to the new charges being filed against him. <\/p>\n

He was apprehended in West Virginia in June 2025 after two police pursuits and was then extradited to Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Esterly was in prison awaiting sentencing that was scheduled for June 30, 2026. He was facing 43 to 87 years in prison and would have been required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lehigh County man who was found guilty of rape after he was accused of sexually molesting a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,433],"class_list":["post-225027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225027","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=225027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}