GREENVILLE Cop pleads to lewdness charge

The officer resigned three months after a state investigation was launched.
MERCER, Pa. -- Former Greenville policeman William Roesch has pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault, indecent exposure and open lewdness.
Roesch, 48, who lived on Hamburg Road in Greenville but has since moved out of town, entered the plea Monday before Common Pleas Judge Thomas Dobson, the same day that his trial was set to begin.
The case was prosecuted by the state attorney general's office, and Attorney General Jerry Pappertsaid Roesch committed the offenses while on duty as a police officer.
He faced a total of 12 counts of indecent exposure, indecent assault, open lewdness and official oppression had the case gone to trial.
The attorney general's investigation into his behavior began in February 2002, three months after allegations were made by civilian women working in the Greenville-West Salem Police Department.
He was placed on paid suspension in December 2001 and resigned in April 2002.
He wasn't charged until October 2003.
Pappert said evidence against Roesch was presented to a Statewide Investigating Grand Jury which recommended that criminal charges be filed.
What jury decided
The grand jury determined that, between December 1996 and December 2001, Roesch, while on duty, groped and fondled female civilian employees of his police department and that he exposed his genitals to female employees at the police station, Pappert said.
The grand jury heard evidence that a woman called the police department complaining of early morning obscene phone calls to her home and, within minutes of her call to police, Roesch arrived at her home.
While inside her home, Roesch began writing a report but then began to rub his genitals through his trousers and then began to masturbate in front of the woman, Pappert said.
Roesch is free on his own recognizance and faces sentencing Aug. 27.