TodayFormer Shippensburg University cop sentenced for molesting girls
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Article RatingA former Shippensburg University police officer who pleaded guilty to molesting to 4-year-old girls in Swatara Township in 2006 was sentenced Friday to 26 to 52 years in state prison.
Michael Fernsler, 34, of Franklin County, was sentenced before Dauphin County Judge Todd A. Hoover on charges of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse with a child, indecent assault of a child less than 13 years of age, two counts of corruption of minors, and unlawful contact with a minor.
Fernsler had been released from Dauphin County Prison after posting $50,000 bail, and court records say he also faces charges including kidnapping and attempted rape stemming from an incident on Nov. 11, 2007, in Lebanon County. Court records say Fernsler is classified as a sexually violent predator.
According to reports, Fernsler was visiting the girls’ home on March 23 when he took them to a bedroom and sexually molested them.
Fernsler had been a foster parent, police said, and two male foster children who lived with Fernsler and his wife have been removed from their house.
Shippensburg University spokesman Peter Gigliotti said Fernsler was immediately suspended and subsequently resigned from the university police force. No complaints of inappropriate conduct by Fernsler had been reported on the campus, Gigliotti said, and the officer had been employed at the university for less than a year.
Fernsler previously was an officer in North Londonderry Township in Lebanon County and Baltimore County, Md.
