A former New Jersey State Police trooper has admitted to attempting to arrange a sexual encounter with a person he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Shane H. Dempsey, 32, pleaded guilty last week in Monmouth County Superior Court to attempted sexual assault and official misconduct.
Dempsey, a seven-year member of the New Jersey State Police, was arrested in July 2024 after he arrived for a purported meeting with a juvenile in his police-issued vehicle, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
An investigation began earlier last year after a detective with the prosecutor’s high-tech crimes unit encountered Dempsey in a social media app known as Whisper.
The detective, posing as a teen girl about to begin high school, was contacted by a person using the screen name “Monster_random.”
That user, later identified as Dempsey, “attempted to solicit sexually explicit images and expressed a desire to pay money in exchange for a sex act from a person he believed to be a 14-year-old female,” prosecutors said.
Two days after his arrest, Dempsey was released to his home in Brick to live under house arrest with his pregnant wife and two children while awaiting trial, the Asbury Park Press reported.
During last week’s hearing, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Henry P. Butehorn removed Dempsey from his public position and barred him for life from holding public employment in New Jersey.
Dempsey is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 21, officials said. The state plans to recommend seven years in state prison, including two years of parole ineligibility, as well as sex offender registration under Megan’s Law and lifetime parole supervision.
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