Moorestown officer and friend face abuse charge

A Moorestown police officer and his former girlfriend have been charged with sexually assaulting three girls in incidents dating to 2003, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said yesterday.

Patrolman Robert Melia Jr., 38, and Heather Lewis, 32, were arrested Saturday and charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, among other charges.

An investigation began Thursday, when a child told her stepfather that Lewis and Melia had sexually assaulted her between August 2007 and January, officials said.

The investigation led officials to two other alleged victims, both minors. Officials said Melia and Lewis also sexually assaulted them. All of the alleged assaults took place at Melia's home on Cottage Avenue in Moorestown, authorities said.

On Saturday, authorities served a search warrant at Melia's home and seized his computer and pornographic materials, officials said. Melia was arrested at the Moorestown police station, the Prosecutor's Office said.

Lewis, of Stockton's Bridge Road in Pemberton, had been arrested earlier that day.

"They were at one time in a dating relationship, which stopped, and they kept in contact with each other," said Jack Smith, a spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office.

The Moorestown Police Department, which has suspended Melia, declined to comment on the investigation.

A Superior Court judge refused yesterday to lower the defendants' bail. Melia was held at the Burlington County Jail in Mount Holly with bail set at $500,000; Lewis was in the Women's Detention Center in Pemberton with bail set at $300,000.