{"id":30569,"date":"2025-11-11T00:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30569\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T00:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:49:08","slug":"judge-denies-former-school-resource-officers-bid-to-withdraw-guilty-plea-in-bethlehem-sexual-assault-case-da-says-bethelehm-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30569\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies former school resource officer\u2019s bid to withdraw guilty plea in Bethlehem sexual assault case, DA says | Bethelehm Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A judge has denied a former Bethlehem school resource officer\u2019s bid to withdraw his guilty plea<\/a> in a sexual assault case.<\/p>\n

Judge Samuel P. Murray denied the motion to withdraw the guilty plea that Costas Alestas filed, according to a news release from the Northampton County Coroner\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

In May of 2024, Bethlehem Police uncovered allegations that Alestas sexually assaulted a girl that had been under his protection as the school resource officer for East Hills Middle School in Bethlehem, the DA\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The DA\u2019s office said a thorough police investigation confirmed that he committed the sexual offenses. Police also recovered evidence confirming that Alestas secretly recorded an \u201cupskirt\u201d video of another girl, according to the news release.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Alestas was charged with several sexual offenses, including statutory sexual assault, institutional sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, criminal use of a communications facility, and invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n

The DA\u2019s office said Alestas pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual assault against a person less than 16 years old, a first-degree felony, and invasion of privacy, a third-degree misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Alestas later requested to withdraw his guilty plea, but Judge Murray denied the motion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A judge has denied a former Bethlehem school resource officer\u2019s bid to withdraw his guilty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,19224,327,10025,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-30569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-costas-alestas","12":"tag-guilty-plea","13":"tag-school-resource-officer","14":"tag-sexual-assault"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30569","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=30569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}