{"id":359556,"date":"2025-12-20T07:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359556\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T07:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:22:11","slug":"mantua-township-couple-charged-in-child-sexual-assault-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359556\/","title":{"rendered":"Mantua Township couple charged in child sexual assault investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">MANTUA TWP., N.J. (WPVI) &#8212; Police in <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/place\/mantua-township\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mantua Township<\/a> have arrested a husband and wife in connection with a child sexual assault investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Michael Brown, 46, and his wife, Valerie Brown, 44, were both taken into custody on Wednesday after the victim reported the alleged assaults to police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Investigators say the abuse occurred between 2018 and 2020, beginning when the victim was 13 years old.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA hsDdd DbOXS oklLN GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"hsDdd NDJZt sJeUN IJwXl vBqtr KrDt itslR WAUrb hakZw HlUVI \" data-testid=\"prism-image\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/18301124_121925-wpvi-mantua-suspects-michael-valerie-brown.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Court documents allege the assaults started as touching and escalated. Authorities say Michael Brown would pick up the victim from school and take her to a hotel, where she was sexually assaulted. The victim said the assaults happened at the motel and in areas of Mantua and Woodbury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to the criminal complaint, Valerie Brown was aware that her husband was bringing the victim to the motel. Authorities have not disclosed how the suspects knew the victim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Michael Brown is charged with second-degree sexual assault of a minor between ages 13 and 16, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and fourth-degree criminal sexual contact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Valerie Brown is charged with third-degree endangering the welfare of a child and tampering with evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Anyone with information is urged to contact Detective Corporal Jeff Krieger at jkrieger@mantuatownship.com.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANTUA TWP., N.J. (WPVI) &#8212; Police in Mantua Township have arrested a husband and wife in connection with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[177699,23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-359556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-177699","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}