A volunteer firefighter has been suspended, after police in Northampton County accused him of having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl.<\/p>\n
Michael A. Dempsey Jr., 40, of Northampton, is charged with aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors, and unlawful contact with a minor, according to court paperwork.<\/p>\n
In a news release, the Northampton Borough Fire Department said Dempsey was suspended from the department pending further review.\u00a0An online posting of the fire department’s 2026-27 roster listed Dempsey as a captain.<\/p>\n
The department said it conducts criminal-background and child-abuse clearance checks of its members as required by law and the conduct alleged is inconsistent with the values and standards of the Northampton Fire Department.<\/p>\n
“Residents can be assured that this matter will not disrupt the Department’s service to the borough of Northampton or the surrounding communities,” the department said. “This being a pending legal matter, the department has no further comment.”<\/p>\n
The girl told officers with the Northampton Police Department in a 2019 interview that Dempsey in 2018 pulled down her pants and underwear and then assaulted her, court documents say.<\/p>\n
Court paperwork says the alleged incident happened at a detached garage near a home in Northampton.<\/p>\n
The girl pushed Dempsey away and immediately pulled up her clothing and ran into the home, police said.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the girl told police she initially feared reporting the assault to anyone else.<\/p>\n
The girl talked about the assault during a therapy session on April 2019, resulting in a mandated ChildLine report and the initiation of an investigation, according to court paperwork.<\/p>\n
A review of departmental records revealed that the investigation remained open, but no additional investigative action was documented, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
An officer with the Northampton Police Department was directed to review the unresolved sexual assault investigation in May 2026.<\/p>\n
The officer spoke to the victim, now an adult, and she provided an account that was consistent with the statement she gave investigators in April 2019, court documents say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A volunteer firefighter has been suspended, after police in Northampton County accused him of having sexual contact with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,2675,14487,4729,3628,337],"class_list":["post-264040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-child-abuse","tag-minor","tag-northampton","tag-police-investigation","tag-sexual-assault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264040","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=264040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}