ALBANY — Bail was set at $20,000 Friday morning for Justin Hope, the Guilderland man charged with bringing to his apartment and sexually abusing a resident of Vanderheyden Hall in Rensselaer County, where he had worked.

It emerged at a bail hearing on Friday in Albany County Court that central to the evidence is a recording of a statement that Hope made.

“You could say that he made an admission, yes,” the Justice Center’s Rachel Dunn, who is prosecuting the case, told The Enterprise after the proceeding.

The case documents are sealed.

The Justice Center has stated that bystanders reported seeing Hope drinking alcohol with the Vanderheyden resident in public, and that Vanderheyden Hall had been contacted with that information, setting off the investigation. It had not previously been known how the Justice Center learned about the alleged sexual contact.

Dunn noted in court that Hope would face up to eight years in state prison on the two felony and two misdemeanor charges.

Dunn had asked for $15,000 bail, but Judge William Carter set bail at $20,000 cash or bond.

Carter said that he was setting the bail at $20,000 because of “the nature of the allegations and the People’s likelihoood of success at trial.”

Hope was represented by defense attorney Lee Kindlon.

Asked about his plan for defending Hope, Kindlon said that he had just been retained; the first thing he wants to do is get Hope out of jail. Carter had agreed to allow Hope to be held in the courthouse while Kindlon contacted his family in hopes that they would post bail.

“Then we’re going to sit down, look at the proof, conference the case, and go from there,” he said.

“My plan is to make a plan,” he said.