{"id":67879,"date":"2025-12-22T21:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67879\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:14:08","slug":"ex-cop-gets-10-to-20-years-in-prison-for-sex-offense-against-middle-school-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67879\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-cop gets 10 to 20 years in prison for sex offense against middle school student"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Bethlehem Police Department school resource officer Costas Alestas<\/a> was sentenced Monday to 10 to 20 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a student at East Hills Middle School, according to a news release from the Northampton County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old Easton man pleaded guilty<\/a> in April to sexually assaulting the girl in the boys\u2019 locker room during a school dance. Alestas was a police officer assigned to the school.<\/p>\n

Alestas tried to withdraw his guilty plea<\/a> in September, but Northampton County Judge Samuel Murray denied that request<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Alestas has maintained his innocence from the beginning of this case,\u201d his attorney, Thomas Clemens of Philadelphia, said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Clemens said he hopes Murray will honor his post-sentence motion requesting a new trial. If not, he\u2019ll ask the Pennsylvania Superior Court to allow Alestas to withdraw his plea and go to trial.<\/p>\n

Alestas admitted to repeated inappropriate communications with the girl between March and May 2024, admitted he sexually assaulted her in his car at the William Penn Highway Park and Ride in Bethlehem Township and admitted he sexually assaulted her in his car at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township.<\/p>\n

He pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.<\/p>\n

Alestas also admitted he took an upskirt video of a different girl at a different time in the school. He pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy and got a year of probation for that crime, according to District Attorney Stephen Baratta. <\/p>\n

Murray sentenced Alestas on Monday. He also found Alestas to be a sexually violent predator, which means he will have to register his address with law enforcement for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Bethlehem Police Department school resource officer Costas Alestas was sentenced Monday to 10 to 20 years in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-67879","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67879","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=67879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}