Former radio talk host faces child rape charges

Reese Hopkins arrested in Mass., extradited to N.Y.

Edward M. Hopkins was escorted from Malden District Court yesterday after being arraigned. (BIZUAYEHU TESFAYE/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A recently laid-off WRKO talk show host faces charges today in Manhattan stemming from allegations that he forcibly raped a 12-year-old girl four years ago in an apartment on the Upper East Side.

Edward M. Hopkins, 39, who went by the name Reese on-air, was arraigned in Malden District Court yesterday on a fugitive from justice warrant, and he waived extradition.

As he was led from a rear door of the courthouse into a Middlesex County sheriff's van, he said: "She charged me on Oct. 1, 2004. I was living in Manchester, Conn. I couldn't have been there."

Wearing leg shackles and handcuffs, Hopkins appeared sleepy-eyed and disheveled as he was led into the van. "She was a former friend of my daughter," Hopkins said of the girl who made the allegations.

Authorities in New York said the victim, who is now 16, decided this past summer to tell her mother about the attack, and the mother immediately alerted police at the city's 19th Precinct. New York City police said Hopkins was living with his girlfriend at the apartment where the alleged assault occurred.

The girlfriend is the mother of the victim's friend, according to authorities.

Yesterday, outside the courthouse, a woman who identified herself as Hopkins's girlfriend of seven years said: "He's not guilty. He's upset. Someone has a vendetta against him.

"He's a warm, loving, good-hearted person," said the woman, who refused to give her name. "People don't like celebrities. It never happened."

She added that Hopkins was arrested Wednesday night at his home in Malden as the two prepared to go out to dinner. It was not clear whether the woman is the same girlfriend who reportedly lived with Hopkins in New York.

Hopkins's attorney, Paul Mishkin, said that his layoff from WRKO last week had nothing to do with the case, that he was laid off for budget reasons, along with several other employees at Entercom-owned radio stations.

"He's been polite and cooperative in dealing with me and the police," Mishkin said. "He hasn't made any efforts to avoid prosecution. Had he been summonsed to New York City, he certainly would have done so."

Mishkin said Hopkins has two stepchildren and a son.

Hopkins, a self-described conservative who grew up in Queens, N.Y., held the late-morning slot at WRKO since December and talked about such issues as teenage pregnancy and violence against women. He had scolded the MBTA earlier this year, saying that police were not doing enough to protect female subway riders from sex offenders, according to an MBTA official.

A Lynn city councilor, Rick Ford, recently challenged Hopkins to a fight after Hopkins repeatedly referred to Lynn as "a dump" on his show.

According to a biography page that had been on WRKO's website, Hopkins started his career in radio in 2000, when he became the news anchor and "personality" on the Star & Buc Wild Morning Show on New York's Hot 97.1FM.

Hopkins had been planning a 500-person "listener appreciation" party Nov. 14 at Anthony's of Malden.

Earlier in the week, he said of his firing: "I unfortunately made the chopping block, but it's a business decision. It's not personal."

Hopkins appeared on CNN recently as a political analyst. He called Boston's radio listeners "the best in the world" and added: "I cannot leave. New York is over for me now."