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Former Winthrop police lieutenant pleads guilty to child sex abuse charges
James Feeley was arrested last year and accused of sexually assaulting a child who was between 10 and 11 years old at the time.
A former Winthop police lieutenant will spend four to six years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple child sex abuse charges Monday, court records show.
James Feeley, 57, was arrested last year after he allegedly confessed to sexually assaulting a child at his home in Winthrop. Facing one count of child rape and seven counts of indecent assault and battery of a child under 14, he changed his plea to guilty during a Suffolk Superior Court hearing Monday.
Feeley had been scheduled to go to trial in March. His lawyer was not immediately available for comment Monday.
Previously:
Prosecutors alleged he assaulted the child several times between August 2022 and December 2023, when the child was between 10 and 11 years old. The child first disclosed the abuse to an adult on Christmas Day, and Feeley “did not deny the abuse” when his wife confronted him, prosecutors said in court documents.
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Then-Winthrop Police Chief Terence Delehanty told investigators he received a call on Christmas night that Feeley was in Belle Isle Cemetery in Winthrop and “was in a bad way,” according to a Massachusetts State Police report. Delehanty arrived at the cemetery and found Feeley surrounded by several family members near his parents’ gravesite, allegedly armed with a handgun.
Delehanty believed he was suicidal, State Police said.
At that point, an “apologetic” Feeley confessed to the sexual assaults, according to the report. When Delehanty asked him why he was in the cemetery near his parents’ graves, Feeley reportedly replied, “What do you think?”
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Delehanty took Feeley’s gun, and Feeley underwent a psychiatric evaluation at Massachusetts General Hospital. The child was treated at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Then, in a recorded interview with police following his arrest, Feeley admitted to sexually assaulting the child five or six times, prosecutors said.
Judge James Budreau sentenced Feeley to four to six years in state prison, with credit for the time he’s served since his 2023 arrest, as well as five years of probation. Among the conditions of his probation, Feeley will need to register as a sex offender and seek treatment, stay away from and have no contact with the victim, and provide a DNA sample, court records show.
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