The ex-Winthrop police officer charged with raping a young child in his own home has pleaded not guilty to the eight charges he faces in Suffolk Superior Court.

James Feeley, 56, of Winthrop, appeared Thursday morning in the Superior Court in the same outfit he wore three months ago when his case was first arraigned in municipal court in East Boston, but this time he was wearing glasses.

Feeley pleaded not guilty to seven counts of aggravated rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child. Defense attorney Stephen Neyman said he had no comment on the matter following the proceeding.

Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley ordered Feeley held on the same bail and conditions as were imposed at the earlier, East Boston arraignment on Dec. 27: $200,000 cash bail, no contact with the alleged victim or her family, no contact with anyone under 16 years old, that he surrender his passport and any firearms and that he stay in the Massachusetts other than any exclusion zones.

Prosecutor Audrey Mark, the chief of the Suffolk District Attorney’s office’s child protection unit, argued that the high bail is necessary because of the “seriousness of the alleged crimes” and because of the stiff maximum penalty of 10 years in state prison.

Further, she said, Feeley himself had admitted to his wife, to the Winthrop Police chief and to investigators following his arrest that he had raped the child some “five to six times” while the child was between 10 and 11 years old.

The rapes are alleged to have occurred, she said, at Feeley’s own home on Winthrop’s Pleasant Street.

Feeley is alleged to have orally raped and fondled the child, Mark said. She added that when the defendant’s wife found out about it and confronted him, “he did not deny the abuse.”

Feeley was arrested after Winthrop Police Chief Terance Delehanty told a Massachusetts State Police detective that the officer  had called him from his parents’ graves at Winthrop’s Belle Isle Cemetery and told him that he was “in a bad way.”

Delehanty said he believed that Feeley was suicidal and that Feeley told him “wait until I tell you what I’ve done,” before disclosing that he had had sexual contact with the child.

This is a developing story.