monsters

Gay Doc Frank Spinelli Says Hero Cop William Fox Molested Him As A Boy Scout. Oh, And 10 Other Boys

Frank Spinelli, the handsome Manhattan HIV doc with a clientele of equally handsome gay gentleman (swears a friend who’s spent time in his office), knew something was up with William Fox, the 65-year-old former NYPD cop whose memoir he’d been reading. Oh, right: Fox was the man who molested him back in the Boy Scouts.

Back when Spinelli was a Scout, it was Fox who was his abuser from 1978-80, he claims. “It went on for a long time, until I couldn’t take it any more. It was an abusive thing,” says Spinelli. And his memory was triggered when Spinelli was reading Fox’s book The Cop and the Kid, based on Fox in 1981 talking 17-year-old runaway Michael Buchanan not to jump off the sixth floor of a building; after Buchanan came down, Fox adopted him.

Is this the same man who’s now accused of molesting at least 10 boys? Yep.

Fox, who retired after 11 years on the force after a drunk driver hit his car, and was named by the National Father’s Day Committee as a 1982 “father of the year,” was apprehended last week after authorities worked off Spinelli’s tip. Slapped with 21 counts of rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, Fox is accused of luring boys from as far away as Florida to his Pennsylvania home to molest them. Spinelli, who lives in Staten Island, came forward as the “concerned individual” police said had come forward fingering Fox as a monster.

UPDATE: Spinelli tells us via email: “In 1978 I was molested by my Scoutmaster, William Fox, a police officer who lived in Staten Island. I told my parents about the molestation in 1980 and the scout leaders asked Bill to step down. No charges were pressed. During my book tour in 2008 I met old friends from Staten Island. That sparked an interest in locating Bill. Through a Google search, I discovered that 1982, Bill talked a suicidal teenage boy off a ledge and adopted him. That year he wrote a memoir entitled, The Cop and the Kid and was voted Father of the Year. I tracked Bill down in Liberty, PA and with the help of the Staten Island Special Victim’s Unit we wire tapped two phone calls with Bill. Based on my story and the wire taps, Bill was investigated. We discovered that over the past thirty years, Bill adopted 15 boys. This past Tuesday I was just notified by Corporal Wagaman in Liberty, PA that Bill was arrested on 21 counts of child molestation, rape, deviant sexual intercourse and intimidation of a minor in Liberty, PA. The three victims were all his adopted children who incidentally have psychological and mental handicaps.”

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