By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A Shelby County grand jury has returned a five-count indictment against a former Birmingham police officer, charging him with several sex charges, according to Shelby County Circuit Court documents.

Thirty-year-old Joshua Richard Herbinger, who lists an address in Birmingham and previously listed an address in Alabaster, has been indicted on four felony counts of sexual abuse of a child younger than 12 and one felony count of first-degree rape.

Shelby County District Court Judge Dan Reeves bound charges against Herbinger over to the grand jury on Aug. 26, and the grand jury returned indictments against the suspect on Sept. 10. He is scheduled to appear in Shelby County Circuit Court on Oct. 5 at 8:30 a.m. for arraignment.

Herbinger had been a Birmingham police officer for about nine years before he was terminated from the position on Oct. 24, 2014.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Herbinger on Oct. 20, 2014, and charged him with the first-degree rape charge after an alleged incident involving an adult victim, according to Alabaster Police Chief Curtis Rigney.

When he was arrested on Oct. 20, 2014, he was out on bond for four counts of sexual abuse of a child younger than 12, which were brought against him by Alabaster police on Oct. 9, 2014.

According to Alabaster Police Chief Curtis Rigney, the child sex abuse charges came after a female student in Alabaster notified her school resource officer of the allegations.

According to his arrest warrants, Herbinger’s charges stemmed from multiple incidents between Jan. 1, 2011 and Oct. 7, 2014, during which he allegedly “touched (the victim’s) privates.”

Sexual abuse of a child younger than 12 is a Class B felony, and is punishable by up to 20 years in prison upon conviction.

First-degree rape is a Class A felony, and is punishable by up to life in prison upon conviction.