The former officer-in-charge of the East Rockhill Township Police Department pleaded guilty in Bucks County Monday to nearly 100 counts of sexually assaulting l3 boys over the last five years. 
     James J. O'Boyle, 41, a former state policeman and part-time patrolman for Quakertown before becoming an officer in East Rockhill in 1980, admitted to charges of statutory rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexually abusing children, indecent assault, corrupting the morals of minors and distributing obscene materials to children. 
     First Assistant District Attorney Dale A. Reichley painted a picture of O'Boyle as a "coldly calculating" man who gained the trust of parents and potential victims through manipulation of his role as a police officer. 
     Often he would be introduced into a home, many times a broken home, by assuming a "big brother" posture with the boys he would later victimize, according to Reichley. 
     "He's a very likable person on the surface. None of these parents hesitated to allow their children to stay at his house...," Reichley said. 
     Bucks County Detective Harry Armitage testified that parents thought little of letting their children accompany the officer to his cabin in Benton, Columbia County. Many of the youths involved in ongoing relationships with O'Boyle were "treated" to weekends at the secluded mountain spot where they were molested, he said. 
     According to Reichley, O'Boyle was so effective at winning the support of parents in the community he was responsible for protecting that last spring nearly l,000 township residents signed a petition calling for his appointment to police chief, a vacant position at the time. Several children of the residents petitioning the supervisors for his appointment were later found by the grand jury to have been victims of sexual abuse. 
     Armitage testified the county grand jury investigation had uncovered instances of O'Boyle's sexual involvement with children as far back as 1969, when he was a state police officer. 
     No charges were filed in six cases because the alleged offenses took place more than five years ago. 
     A cart piled with boxes of sexually explicit books, magazines, movies, video recording's and letters to a Florida man with whom he corresponded was wheeled into the courtroom as evidence. O'Boyle stored the materials at the home of a Quakertown woman who later turned them over to police, the Armitage said. 
     Armitage said O'Boyle introduced the boys to the materials gradually sidling up to them, talking to them about how it is "natural" to have sex, touching them and inviting them to touch him. He said that in many instances O'Boyle succeeded. Reichley asked the detective if there was an apparent underlying reason why none of the children who testified before the grand jury had come forward on their own to tell their parents of the incidents. 
     Armitage responded, "They felt by testifying against a police officer, they would not be believed." Included in the materials confiscated by police were correspondence showing O'Boyle was a member of a secret pedophile organization, the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), and a similar California-based group, Renae Guyon Society, which Armitage said uses as its motto, "Sex before eight or it's too late." 
     Armitage also testified O'Boyle exchanged photographs with his so-called "pen-pal" in Florida, Larry Heiny. Though Heiny told the grand jury he no longer had any material sent to him by O'Boyle, Armitage contended the man lied. 
     According to Armitage, Heiny was a convicted child molester, pedophile and pornography distributor who, after being confronted by county detectives, had given photos sent him by O'Boyle to an undercover investigator in Florida. 
     Heiny was being investigated at the time for allegedly distributing pornography, Armitage said, producing the pictures turned over by Heiny to the undercover officer. 
     No positive identification of the youths could be made because the photos showed the boys only below the waist, however Heiny had told the undercover officer the pictures had been received from O'Boyle. 
     In one letter to Heiny, O'Boyle said he had secured an eight-week summer job at a Boy Scout camp. "It'll be like I died and went to heaven," Armitage read from the letter. 
     Reichley requested a pre-sentence investigation be conducted before Garb passes sentence. Such an investigation will look into not only the evidence brought by the grand jury, but also the effect of O'Boyle's actions on the lives of the victims and their families to form a more complete picture, he said. 
     O'Boyle faces up to 48 years' imprisonment and more than $92,000 in fines. He must receive a minimum of five years for involuntary sexual deviate intercourse under the states Mandatory Sentencing Act.