[PHOTO] Charles Leaf

Fox 5 News reporter Charles Leaf was arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a 4-year-old-girl. (October 8, 2010)

By SHELLEY NG wpix.com

11:49 a.m. EDT, October 8, 2010
WYCKOFF, N.J. (WPIX)—
A New York TV reporter was arrested Thursday on charges that he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl inside his New Jersey home.

Charles Leaf, 40, a general assignment and investigative reporter for Fox 5 News, was arrested on three counts of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child at his Louisa Avenue home in Wyckoff, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office did not reveal many details of the incident other than the 4-year-old girl was an acquaintance of Leaf's and was assaulted inside his home.

Leaf was charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child. He is being held in Bergen County jail on $250,000 bail. Leaf was also ordered to surrender his passport and have no contact with the victim.

The arrest stemmed from a collaborative investigation between the prosecutor's office Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit and the local Wyckoff Police Department.

Leaf is scheduled for arraignment on November 4 at 7 p.m.

Leaf is married with two children. He is an ex-Marine who joined Fox 5 News in July 2006. He previously worked for Fox affiliates in Denver, Detroit and Kansas City and NBC affiliates in Mobile, Alabama and Yuma, Arizona.

He graduated from Syracuse University with a B.S. in broadcast journalism.