UPDATED: Sheriff's Officer Accused of Sex Abuse of Girls
Thomas Ingham charged with sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
A long-serving Essex County Sheriff’s Officer from Wayne was charged Thursday with sexually abusing a juvenile girl and family friend, authorities said.
Thomas Ingham, 48, an Essex County sheriff’s officer, was charged with one count of sexual asault and the alleged touching of a child under the age of 13, and one count of criminal sexual contact against a young girl who was a family friend, said Chris Freid, assistant prosecutor for the Special Victims Unit of the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office.
Ingham was also charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and lewdness, against both victims who were between the ages of 8 and 14 when the alleged abuse occurred, Freid said.
Ingham, who has been with the sheriff's office for nearly 25 years, has been suspended without pay, according to a spokesman for the sheriff's office.
The girls reported the allegations to Wayne Police July 19. Police informed the prosecutor office's Special Victims Unit of the allegations.
On the most serious charge, sexual assault, Ingham faces up to 10 years in state prison, Freid said. He will be required to serve 85 percent of the sentence for that charge before being eligible for parole.
"He's been with us for just under 24 years. Our internal affairs unit worked with the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office throughout the investigation," said Kevin Lynch, a spokesman for the Essex County Sheriff's Office. "He was immediately suspended without pay."
— Have a question or news tip? Contact editor Daniel Hubbard at Daniel.Hubbard@patch.com or find us on Facebook and Twitter. For news straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
eyes wide shut
8:31 am on Friday, October 12, 2012
To "Protect and Serve"
maryanne
9:36 am on Friday, October 12, 2012
I hope that the young women get the long-term help that they will need. Isn't there a crime victims fund for counseling?
Flood Plain
11:02 am on Friday, October 12, 2012
It would probably be a good idea to have a trial prior to assuming that the LEO was guilty of anything. In case you haven't heard, teens are known to LIE. I'd wait to see the evidence prior to any assumptions that there are "crime victims" here.
Julie Ritsema
4:08 pm on Friday, October 12, 2012
Guilty until proven innocent. This man has a wife and children in town, but I can't help but think that if the police have been investigating the allegations since July, they found some stuff out that just didn't add up. I'd have to believe that they did their due diligence, as an arrest was not made until yesterday. I am praying for the victims, and this incident also stands as a firm reminder to talk to our children, and keep communication open with them, and don't assume they won't be in harm's way. Sexual predators will continue until they are caught and locked away.
Chris Traynor
11:43 pm on Saturday, October 13, 2012
I sometimes find myself despairing and struggling with the notion that there aren't necessarily more predators, creeps, psychos, serial killers, thrill killers, shallow grave diggers, pharmaceutical lobbyists, panty-sniffing molesters, torturing monsters that document their "work" with low-cost cameras, ethically bereft "in-the-pocket" politicians "representing our needs", kidnappers, disguised satanic scum seeking out positions of power over vulnerable children and a generic horde of diddlers and dope-fiends of all kinds. I tell myself that these days there are just more widely published instances reported for each of us to see and, so, we feel outnumbered by what appears to be an ever-growing band of devils. But on my bad days, like when I see stories like this that completely up-end the notion of children feeling safe to turn to a police officer if they're in a vulnerable position, my already fragile belief that we are not a doomed species dead-set on consuming the weak, the sick and the young among us, just crumbles.
On a day like this, I wonder if our species truly deserves top billing on this one-in-a-trillion gorgeous blue lifeboat rolling on in the freezing inky waves of space. Maybe we should turn over the keys to the bugs and the beasts.
Flood Plain
1:00 am on Monday, October 15, 2012
Regarding your last sentence, I think that idea was done in the November 2008 national election. The "bugs and the beasts" in DC have made our economy and society even worse. Let's "Hope for Change" in the election next month towards economic sanity and social civility.
Kel
11:55 am on Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Can we please not turn this tragic situation into a political debate? If the allegations are true, then it's disheartening and sad. And if the allegations are not true, then it's still disheartening and sad.
emtpride002
10:22 pm on Saturday, January 12, 2013
Looked up to and hope this isnt true ...former emt student. you were one of my favorite instructors and always made the class more amusing. Any given way accusations are harder to prove when so much time has passed.
Ken R.
10:26 pm on Sunday, May 19, 2013
Tom used to be my brother-in-law and although I've never considered him a good friend, I must say that in the whole time I knew him, I never witnessed anything inappropriate about his behavior around children. He was always ambitious, hard working and really felt he was making a difference through his career. I can't imagine the allegations to be true, knowing him as long as I did.