The former director of the Allentown Cadets drum and bugle corps, who is now a Mechanicsburg-area resident, has been charged with sexually assaulting two women.

The filings of the two felony sexual assault charges against George Hopkins, 62, were announced by Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin on Tuesday.

Martin said the charges stem from an investigation that began when Hopkins’ accusers came forward in May. Records show Hopkins, a former Allentown resident, has been living in Cumberland County since this past summer.

George Hopkins

According to the DA, one of the women told detectives from his office and the Allentown police that Hopkins asked her to come to his Allentown home during the winter of 2008 to do work related to Youth Education in the Arts, which sponsors the Cadets. That woman was a YEA employee at the time.

The woman told investigators Hopkins offered her a glass of wine. After drinking it, she claimed she “began to feel peculiar, as though she were ‘floating on the ceiling,’ and described feeling ‘out of it’,” Martin said.

That woman stated she was physically unable to resist when Hopkins allegedly carried her into his bedroom and sexually assaulted her despite her repeated pleas for him to stop, the DA said.

Martin said the second accuser, a former YEA employee, claimed she was assaulted in late summer or early fall 2010. She told detectives she was working for a rival drum and bugle corps at the time and met Hopkins at an Allentown bar to discuss issues affecting her group and the Cadets.

The woman stated she drank a beer at the bar and a shot of liquor Hopkins encouraged her to have. She said when she got up to leave the bar, she felt like she was “moving in Jello,” investigators reported.

She told detectives she then went to Hopkins’ apartment where he ripped her clothing and sexually assaulted her while she begged him to stop and to let her go home.

Martin said Hopkins surrendered to authorities Tuesday morning by prior arrangement. He is to be arraigned on the charges this afternoon.

Hopkins’ lawyer Thomas Bergstrom called the accusations false. “He has long denied these charges,” Bergstrom said. “His position remains the same.”

He said Hopkins has been released on his own recognizance pending a preliminary hearing.

Hopkins resigned from the Cadets this past spring after being accused of sexual harassment.