A former Winthrop police lieutenant pleaded guilty to raping and abusing a 11-year-old child over the course of a year in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday.

“I am pleading guilty for the very vile acts I committed,” James Feeley stated on the stand Monday, asked to tell the court why he was there in his own words.

Feeley, 57, changed his plea Monday, having pleaded not guilty in March. He will face four to six years in prison and five years on probation for seven counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and one count of rape and abuse of a child, a Suffolk Superior Court judge ruled.

The sexual abuse came to light after the 11-year-old victim told an adult on Christmas Day in 2023, prosecutors said. Following a confrontation in the home, Feeley went to the Winthrop’s Belle Isle Cemetery near his parents’ graves reportedly “in a bad way” where he called and was confronted by police.

In the cemetery, he made “numerous admissions” about the sexual abuse over the last year and was arrested, the prosecution said. Feeley admitted to his wife, the Winthrop Police chief and other investigators he raped the child about “five to six times” in his home, according to court records.

The prosecution recounted graphic details from the victim’s interviews in court Monday. The girl declined to give a victim impact statement at the plea hearing. Feeley’s wife, who was present on Zoom, was also asked and declined to give a statement Monday, though she said she’d written a letter for the judge.

Feeley was solemn and used contrite language admitting to the sexual abuse in court on Monday.

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The former cop was ordered in court to register as a sex offender, submit a DNA sample, undergo sex offender treatment and have no contact with the victim as conditions of his guilty plea.

The judge said the guilty plea is a step for the family to move “towards healing” but there is a “long journey ahead.”