{"id":67890,"date":"2025-12-22T21:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67890\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:26:08","slug":"former-bethlehem-middle-school-resource-officer-sentenced-to-10-20-years-on-sexual-assault-charges-bethlehem-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67890\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bethlehem middle school resource officer sentenced to 10\u201320 years on sexual assault charges | Bethlehem Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A former police officer once trusted to protect middle school students is now headed to state prison potentially for decades on sexual assault charges.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Costas Alestas, a former Bethlehem City Police Officer, has been sentenced to 10-20 years in state prison after pleading guilty to the charges of Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse and Invasion of Privacy, according to a press release from the Northampton County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Police say after serving his time in state prison, he will also spend three years on probation, while an additional one-year probation sentence for an invasion of privacy charge will run at the same time.<\/p>\n

This all comes after Alestas attempted to withdraw his guilty plea from April<\/a>, claiming he was innocent.<\/p>\n

On May 1, 2024, the Bethlehem City Police Department was notified of allegations concerning an inappropriate relationship between Officer Alestas and a girl student at East Hills Middle School, according to the release. At the time, Alestas was serving as a School Resource Officer (SRO) employed by the City of Bethlehem Police Department, officers say.<\/p>\n

Authorities say following the report, police were notified immediately, and Officer Alestas was placed on administrative leave.<\/p>\n

Alestas surrendered his cell phone to the police, and a thorough investigation revealed that he had engaged in an inappropriate ongoing relationship with the student.<\/p>\n

Additionally, police recovered evidence that Alestas recorded video up an 11-year-old girl’s skirt without her knowledge, court documents say.<\/p>\n

The DA Office says Alestas was charged with several 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

Officials say Alestas will be registered as a sex offender on Megan’s Law for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A former police officer once trusted to protect middle school students is now headed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,2675,27588,760,2296,24467,10025,789,35870,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-67890","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-child-abuse","12":"tag-invasion-of-privacy","13":"tag-middle-school","14":"tag-police-officer","15":"tag-probation","16":"tag-school-resource-officer","17":"tag-sentencing","18":"tag-sex-offender","19":"tag-sexual-assault"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67890","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=67890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}