Troopers headed to court

Two suspended state troopers stationed at the Lehighton barracks will stand trial for allegedly using a woman’s Facebook account without her permission.

Anthony Kingsley, 32, and Erin Cawley, 41, were in magisterial district court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.

Retired Judge Edward Lewis rejected a request to dismiss felony charges against the troopers, paving the way for the case to go to trial.

Kingsley and Cawley, who are now married and living in Walnutport, have been suspended from their positions with the Lehighton barracks since they were charged on Feb. 15.

They have been accused of using a Facebook account belonging to a Jim Thorpe woman to print and delete some of her private messages without her permission.

The victim said she had an affair with Kingsley prior to the incident.

On Wednesday, a Lehighton resident testified that in January 2017, Cawley and Kingsley provided her with copies of Facebook messages between her now ex-husband and the victim. She said the messages confirmed her suspicions that her husband was cheating on her with the victim.

The woman said she only met the victim on one occasion before, at a Fourth of July party, and following the meeting, the victim had given the woman use of her job credentials to use a site to buy discounted items from The North Face.

The victim testified on Wednesday that she contacted state police in late January, after she was told of the messages that had been obtained.

She said Kingsley had her login and password because they had conducted an affair between January and August 2016. She said Kingsley asked her to use her account on two specific occasions to look up charity events that benefited police charities. In each case, she said, he told her that he was going to use the account, and then told her again that he was done.

The victim testified that she and Kingsley agreed to break things off that August after Cawley, who was pregnant with Kingsley’s child at the time, confronted her at her home in Jim Thorpe. She said she assumed that the permission she gave to Kingsley to use the Facebook login ended with the relationship.

The trooper investigating the case, Sgt. James Youngblood, testified Wednesday that he conducted a full download of the victim’s account activity with her permission.

Youngblood said there were five logins from an IP address not belonging to the victim which occurred overnight on Jan. 23, three between the hours of 3-5:30 a.m. He said the victim told him she wasn’t using her account at that time.

Troopers contacted PenTeleData and learned the IP address was assigned to Kingsley’s home, which at the time was in Kunkletown. In April 2017, a search warrant was executed at the home. Kingsley and Cawley willingly handed over their devices.

Youngblood found deleted texts on a phone identified as Cawley’s, one of which said, “Tony went into her facebook, she gave him the password months ago and never changed it … he screen shorted (sic) the original texts between her and I then deleted it.”

Another deleted text said that Cawley had legally saved texts in which the victim had threatened her.

Kingsley is facing three felony counts including unlawful use of a computer and computer trespass. Cawley faces felony charges of conspiracy to unlawfully use a computer.

They are both scheduled for a formal arraignment May 8. They are currently out on $500 unsecured bail.