A former hero NYPD cop who became a father to a troubled teen he coaxed out of jumping from a downtown flophouse 30 years ago was arrested in Pennsylvania on charges of molesting three boys.
William Fox, 65, was collared Monday at his Liberty Township home and accused of sexually abusing the juveniles between 1996 and 2009, the Sun Gazette newspaper reported Thursday.
The 21-count indictment against Fox included charges of rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, the paper reported. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail.
The former NYPD officer made headlines across the country in 1981 when he adopted 17-year-old Michael Buchanan after he talked the teen out of committing suicide.
Buchanan was sitting on a sixth-floor ledge of a Bowery building when Fox, who was on duty, crawled near him.
The crowd below encouraged Buchanan, a runaway, to jump.
"See, they don't care about me," the teen told Fox, according to news reports.
"Somebody cares," Fox replied. "I'd be proud to have a son like you."
A few months later, the bachelor Fox became the teen's legal guardian.
Fox - who was forced to retire from his 11-year NYPD career after a car accident - later helped pen the novel "The Cop and the Kid" about the heart-warming ordeal.
Buchanan made the news again a couple of years later when he taped a fake bomb to his chest and threatened to blow himself up in downtown Brooklyn.
He wasn't charged and was sent to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
A year later, Buchanan was arrested in Pennsylvania after he fled their Staten Island home with Fox's gun, Jeep and credit card.
According to an Associated Press article, Buchanan wrote a note to Fox that read: "I love you, don't get mad, you've tried to help but I can't live up to all the expectations."
Parasite Police/ Priest/ Scout Leaders/ anyone in authority in the life of another. I live in Miami & I hear about prisoners being sexually assaulted by guards & police officers all the time. It seems those who try to "appear" to be above it or better than, are the very ones who need to be watched the closest. Sad.
ReplyDeleteI knew Bill Fox fifty years ago when he was an auxiliary firefighter with CD 25 and drilled on weekends at the quarters of engine 159 in Dongan Hills. Fox had an illegal light and siren on his car and once drenched a cat in gasoline and tied an ashcan to it's neck to set a brush fire off of Buel Avenue to watch the engines show up. Fox thought that was very funny. Another time he caught a pigeon and snipped it's legs off with a scissor. His rabbi was a gay NYPD sergeant. Fox was an abusive drunk who supplied alcohol to young boys. The drinking age then in NY was 18. I visited his apartment once to see an unconscious 12 year old with his pants unzipped. I left. I was only 13 myself and scared.
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