Wife faces felony charges after soliciting hitman to kill husband

Dec. 27--STROUDSBURG -- A former Bushkill Township police officer and former Mount Pocono Borough councilman learned about his wife's sexual affair with a 14-year-old boy and, instead of reporting her to authorities for illegal contact with a minor, blackmailed her into not divorcing him.

She in turn tried getting a mutual friend to kill her husband and stage his death to look suicidal or accidental so that she could escape the marriage.

Robin Transue has pleaded guilty to soliciting someone to commit aggravated assault, a first-degree felony, and statutory sexual assault, a second-degree felony. Her husband, Keith Transue, has pleaded guilty to criminal coercion (blackmail), a second-degree misdemeanor.

As of Tuesday, Robin Transue was free, after posting on $50,000 bail, while Keith Transue remained free on unsecured bail. Both are awaiting sentencing.

A friend of the couple told police he and Robin Transue had consensual sex on three separate occasions when he was 14 in 2010. He told police she gave him condoms.

In January, when charged in both the sexual offense and solicitation cases, Robin Transue told police she had been trapped in a hellish marriage with an abusive, unfaithful husband.

As for any sexual encounters, she told police the boy must have initiated any sexual contact while she was intoxicated because she doesn't recall initiating anything herself. She said she never confronted the boy afterward, choosing instead to wait until the statute of limitations (the time period during which she can be prosecuted for the crime) expires.

The boy's parents became aware of what had happened and were about to contact police when Keith Transue "smooth-talked" them out of it, she said. Keith Transue then met up with the boy alone and threatened him into handing over his cellphone, which showed text-messages proving she and the boy had been intimate.

Instead of reporting his wife for her crime at that point, Keith Transue told her he would do so only if she ever divorced him.

Six years passed as Robin Transue grew more desperate to escape her marriage, especially after learning the statute of limitations for her sexual offense was nowhere near expiring, police later learned. In 2016, another mutual friend of the Transues, Richard Warner, contacted and told police Robin Transue had approached him with a request to kill her husband and stage his death to look suicidal or accidental.

Warner agreed to wear a wire so that police could record his next conversation with Robin Transue without her knowledge.

In that taped conversation, Transue discussed different methods of having her husband killed, including poison and tampering with the brakes on his vehicle.

She discussed alibis. These involved telling people her husband had been depressed and having suicidal thoughts and making herself appear as a concerned, caring wife.

After hearing this taped conversation, police charged Robin Transue in January. Monroe County District Attorney's Office detectives then investigated Keith Transue and, after confirming he indeed had blackmailed his wife, charged him in May.

It remains to be seen what each defendant will be sentenced to now that both have pleaded guilty.

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