Former Marine, a double amputee, charged with raping 13-year-old girl

A Marine and Purple Heart recipient who lost both legs to a bomb in Afghanistan in 2010 remained jailed Thursday on charges that he raped a 13-year-old girl multiple times last month.

Allegheny County Police this week arrested Brandon Rumbaugh, 36, of Pleasant Hills on 12 criminal charges, seven of them felonies, including rape, sexual assault and buying alcohol for a minor.

He was arraigned Tuesday and denied bail, court records show. Rumbaugh “poses a threat to the victim, witnesses and community,” a district judge determined.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

David Shrager, the lawyer representing Rumbaugh, said he is at the beginning of his investigation.

“These charges are very serious, and Mr. Rumbaugh looks forward to his day in court to address these charges and clear his name,” Shrager told TribLive on Thursday.

The alleged victim, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, told police she had sex with Rumbaugh four times at his Plaza Drive home in April, spending the night there on at least three occasions, a criminal complaint said.

The girl called Rumbaugh a family friend, according to the complaint. She said Rumbaugh started communicating with her by phone when she was 11 or 12.

Before one alleged incident, Rumbaugh bought the girl an alcoholic iced tea at a Sheetz convenience store, the complaint said. She drank the iced tea and “didn’t feel like herself,” she told police. The pair later had sex, she told investigators.

The girl said Rumbaugh told her “to keep this a secret until she was 18 years old,” according to the complaint.

Good press

Rumbaugh served in the Marines on active duty from November 2007 through September 2012, military records show.

He was deployed to Iraq for a six-month tour in 2009 and earned the rank of corporal a year later.

While serving in Afghanistan in 2010, Rumbaugh lost his legs while helping another member of his platoon, who had triggered a buried bomb.

When the Uniontown native moved in to help his colleague, he stepped on another bomb.

Surgeons later amputated Rumbaugh’s left leg below the knee and his right leg at the hip. He spent two years recuperating at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland.

A mortarman in the infantry, Rumbaugh received the Purple Heart and six other commendations, including the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the Good Conduct Medal, records show.

He ended his military career with a Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Rumbaugh later returned to Pennsylvania. He dabbled in land, oil and gas development, starting a firm he called Brandon Rumbaugh Solutions.

He also started working as a motivational speaker. In 2020, he shared his story at Westmoreland County Community College with a volunteer group linked to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Shrager said Rumbaugh has appeared as a motivational speaker in front of more than 100 groups.

TribLive has written about Rumbaugh several times over the years. He participated in 2011 in the 31st National Veterans Wheelchair Games. In 2014, he was gifted a 3,760-square-foot house in Uniontown outfitted with 155 adaptive features. The following year, he made headlines by spending time living on the street in Uniontown to raise awareness about homelessness.

A 2016 story covered the donation to Rumbaugh of an all-terrain wheelchair. And, in 2017, Seton Hill University honored him with a baseball jersey and a donation for a foundation.

“Be inspired by @BrandonRumbaugh,” former WTAE anchor Sally Wiggin posted to social media in 2015. “A remarkable Marine vet who has defeated the odds.”

On social media, Rumbaugh kept busy. His X account, which has about 1,200 followers this week, features selfies with prominent people.

In 2014, Rumbaugh posted a picture of himself with Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II. That same year also had a photo of Rumbaugh in the hospital with then-President Barack Obama.

Hard times

In 2023, public records show, Rumbaugh experienced a range of difficulties. That January, Rumbaugh’s wife filed for divorce, court records show.

The divorce decree was granted four months later, court records show, and she was granted legal custody of their two children.

A year later, in January 2024, a bank sued Rumbaugh in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court for more than $65,000 after it said he stopped making payments on his 2019 Cadillac, court records show. The case was settled.

In April 2024, court records show a second bank took Rumbaugh to court over nearly $47,000 in unpaid debts. That matter was settled in arbitration.

In November of the same year, the state of Pennsylvania put a lien on Rumbaugh’s Pleasant Hills home, court records show. The government said he owed about $3,500 in unpaid taxes.

Two days after the state filed the lien, a third bank sued Rumbaugh for more than $35,000 over a Citibank account in arrears.

On Thursday, the website Rumbaugh operated to promote his motivational speaking work appeared to be taken down.

Nobody answered Rumbaugh’s cellphone this week. Those close to Rumbaugh could not be reached.

His parents, who still list a home address near Uniontown, didn’t return calls seeking comment. Neither did his ex-wife or a woman identified in news stories as a girlfriend.

The It’s About The Warrior Foundation, and that group’s founder, also didn’t return calls from a TribLive reporter. Rumbaugh wrote on social media about working with the Massachusetts-based group.

Master Sgt. Brian Bensen, a Marine Corps recruiter, didn’t return calls. In 2014, Bensen said he was “damn proud” to have served alongside Rumbaugh, his longtime friend.

“To care about people that much, I’m damn proud to have put Brandon in the Marine Corps,” Bensen was quoted in a TribLive article as saying. “The lives that he’s affected, the people he’s probably saved, the type of person he is today, the things that he’s going to do in this world … I am so proud he’s standing here today as a Marine that’s served with him.”

Shocking news

Ed Fike, a former Uniontown mayor, spoke at the unveiling of Rumbaugh’s disability-friendly home when Rumbaugh was given the keys in 2014.

Fike told TribLive he was shocked Wednesday when his daughter shared news about the rape charges against the former Marine.

“Everything I knew about him was great,” said Fike, 84, who first served as the city’s mayor in 2008 and held the post as recently as 2020. “We put together a brand-new home for him.”

Fike said he hadn’t talked with Rumbaugh for about a year. He didn’t remember when or why Rumbaugh left the home donors built for him in Uniontown.

“I think everybody around here knew him, because of his disability and the hardships he went through,” Fike added.

Then, Fike turned to news of the allegations.

“But I don’t expect that sort of thing from anybody.”