AndrewBlakePittsburgh, PA – The wife of a Pennsylvania police chief who has been charged with trying to have sex with a 14-year-old girl has spoken out about how she feels about the situation.
“I have never hurt so bad in all my life,” Danielle Diebold said in a statement she sent to KDKA on Sunday that addressed the impact of her husband’s arrest on their family.
Leechburg Police Chief Michael Diebold was arrested after he sent an undercover agent posing as a 14-year-old girl multiple inappropriate photos and tried to meet the girl in person.
Chief Diebold was taken into custody on Friday afternoon at the Sheetz in Lower Burrell where the police chief thought he was meeting with the fictional 14-year-old girl for sex, according to WPXI.
He was charged with unlawful contact with a minor and criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
The chief married Danielle Reinke on July 11, 2017, shortly after their son Kyle was born, and only three weeks after the fireworks accident that blew off his lower left arm.
“They say God will never give you more than you can handle, but he did this time,” the chief’s newlywed wife said in her statement.
“I am broken, devastated, humiliated, and I was completely blindsided,” Danielle Diebold said. “He was the first man ever in my life who never made me question, never gave me a gut feeling, never a bad instinct or sign and we were even in the process of planning to extend our family.”
The man who called himself “Kutecop4you” on the KIK app, and described himself as “dominate male officer seeks fun, discreet, sub playmate” was not the man his wife and family knew, and his wife said they are grieving the loss of that man and trying to come to terms with the fact that he has been “charged with committing a terrible crime.”
“I feel like they are two different people — but they are not,” Danielle Diebold said in the statement.
The chief’s wife apologized to the community and their family and friends, and “any minor who may have been involved.”
Chief Diebold had battled the Leechburg Council in December of 2017 to keep his job after losing his arm. He was recently told he could return to full active duty as chief if he could pass a fitness for duty medical exam.
Chief Diebold was being held at Westmoreland County Prison under $500,000 bond. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 16.