Cop pleads guilty to indecent assault

By jeanne starmack

starmack@vindy.com

new castle

A New Castle police officer accused of luring two underage girls to his house with liquor and having sex with them pleaded guilty before his trial was to start Monday.

Richard Corbin, 38, pleaded guilty in Lawrence County Common Pleas court to two counts of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors, said the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office.

He was charged by Pennsylvania State Police with statutory sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault.

Also Monday, Common Pleas Judge John Hodge granted the attorney general’s motion for a protective order against people charged with trying to intimidate a victim in the case.

The state charged Robert Bogdan, 20, and his live-in girlfriend, Billie Esposito, 35, last week with intimidation, conspiracy to intimidation, obstructing justice and hindering prosecution. Bogdan is the nephew of Corbin’s wife.

The two, of Whippo Street in New Castle, are charged with going to one of the victim’s houses in Hermitage, Pa., on March 9 and threatening her and offering her $4,000 to recant her story about the night she and her friend went to Corbin’s house in January 2008. The girls said they went there after he’d offered them a ride in downtown New Castle.

The girls, who were 13 and 15 at the time, testified in a preliminary hearing in 2008 that after they found liquor in his car, Corbin suggested they all go back to his house to drink it. The girls testified they drank seven to nine shots of alcohol before Corbin initiated sex with them.

Corbin was free on a nonmonetary bond while awaiting trial. The attorney general’s office said Monday he would still be free on bond until his sentencing April 19.