Ohio sex predator dead in suspected suicide;
as many as 12 children assaulted as young as 3
Warning: graphic details follow
GLENN MCENTYRE
The suspect in a massive child sex crimes investigation has committed suicide, according to authorities.
Prosecutors believe 36-year-old Matthew Bahr of Reynoldsburg sexually assaulted at least 12 children in Franklin, Madison, Licking and Pickaway Counties.
10TV spoke with the Circleville mother who first contacted police about Bahr. She called him a trusted family friend. "He was kind. He went out of his way to do things for anyone," she said.
10TV is not identifying her to protect the anonymity of her child. "He shocked everybody and destroyed a lot of lives," she said.
She made the horrible discovery on Aug. 30, when she found Bahr alone with her 3-year-old daughter.
"His pants was unzipped, he had an erection and my daughter was completely naked holding her toes, with her legs spread completely out. It feels like everything is pulled from your body," she cried. "You don't ever want anything to happen like that with one of your kids."
She took her daughter to the hospital, and reported the incident to Circleville Police.
Heather Carter was the prosecutor on the case. "We discovered we had at least a dozen victims over the span of almost a decade," she said.
She says a search of Bahr's Reynoldsburg home produced evidence including hidden cameras and a massive amount of child pornography.
"And (there) were cameras that looked like everyday objects — a pair of sunglasses, a pen, an external charger for a cell phone, things like that — that he was bringing into these home with him, just kind of laying on a table or on a dresser, that they could capture what he was doing," Carter said.
"So, when a parent walked out of a room, that gave him an opportunity for him to either expose himself to a child, have a child touch him inappropriately, or in the case of the 3-year-old, actually physically digitally penetrating the child."
Terribly, she says, there was more.
"Logs that he had taken of bus schedules of children. So, for example, he would say, at this street, the bus comes at this time. And it was down to the minute. It would say at 7:42 a.m., the bus comes and the following children are at this bus stop, here are their names. They don't have parents with them. They might have a dog, here's their dog's name. There's the temperament of their dog, so stay away from from this child if the dog is around or not."
Glenn McEntyre: "What does that tell you about this man?"
Heather Carter: "That he was escalating. And eventually he would have kidnapped one of these children."
Glenn McEntyre: "Have you seen efforts to this extent and detail?"
Heather Carter: "No. No."
Glenn McEntyre: "How do you describe this man, and how do you describe what he did?"
Heather Carter: "Unforgivable and heinous. It's one thing to commit a crime. It's entirely another thing to commit a crime against a child. These are innocent children that are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives."
Bahr will not stand trial for his alleged crimes. On Monday, he was found hanged in his cell at the Pickaway County Jail — a suspected suicide.
Prosecutors say while that ends the case against him, it doesn't end their work. "It doesn't stop our investigation as far as determining who all of those victims were as best we can, and then addressing that with their guardians and letting them know," said Carter.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about how many other kids — what their parents are going through," said the mother of the 3-year-old. "Because I know what I'm going through."
Prosecutors say they have identified five of the 12 victims Bahr recorded himself sexually abusing. They also say there were videos of him exposing himself to dozens more children in public places, like stores and parks.
Anyone with information on Bahr is asked to call the Pickaway County Prosecutor's Office at (740) 474-6066. The Pickaway County Sheriff says Bahr's suspected suicide is under investigation.
Parents can find resources for those who suffered from sexual abuse here.
Another fool thought he could escape judgment by suiciding. He knows now how stupid that was.
Iowa man pleads not guilty to several
child sex abuse charges
Posted By: Mike Bunge
KIMT
CLARION, Iowa – A Wright County man accused of sexually abusing a child is pleading not guilty.
Joe Angel Casiano, 54 of Eagle Grove, was charged in August with three counts of 2nd degree sex abuse, lascivious acts with a child, and indecent exposure. Authorities say all the crimes involved the same victim during the same incident.
A trial has been scheduled to start on November 5.
Oregon church sued for failing to protect child
from sexual abuse at youth group
Posted By: Jamie Parfitt, KDRV
MEDFORD, Ore. — A woman who says she was sexually abused as a child has filed a lawsuit against the Trail Christian Fellowship Church in Eagle Point, claiming that the church leadership failed to protect her and other potential victims.
According to the lawsuit, the abuse began in 2008 when the victim was 14 and attended the church's youth group. The man accused of abusing her, 23-year-old Jacob Durrett, was a Navy seaman who was "involved in the church's youth group."
"The lawsuit alleges that Trail Christian Fellowship knew Durrett (a congregant) was sexually abusing girls he met at the church’s youth group," wrote the attorneys representing the alleged victim. "Nevertheless, the suit alleges that the church allowed Durrett to continue participating in its youth group, and failed to take action to intervene and protect minor congregants, including the Plaintiff."
"The suit alleges that Durrett’s abuse was known to pastors employed by the church, and was well known within the church’s congregation," they continued.
In 2015, Durrett was arrested and charged with four felony sex abuse charges in Jackson County. However, the case was dismissed in early 2016 when Durrett died before it could go to trial.
The suit claims that the church received reports from another underage girl claiming that Durrett had abused her. At that point, the plaintiff says that she informed the church leadership of abuse that she suffered as well, but nobody intervened.
“We believe the evidence in this case will show that Trail Christian Fellowship knew or should have known that Mr. Durrett was sexually abusing minors from the church, including Plaintiff. Durrett was allowed to attend the church’s youth group where he groomed Plaintiff and another girl," said attorney Peter Janci.
“People need to understand that sexual abuse by those in positions of trust can happen in any youth-focused organization. It doesn’t matter if you live in an otherwise safe, quiet, small-town area. Sexual predators use these types of positions of trust to sexually abuse children in their care,” said Faith Morse, another attorney for the victim.
Pastor Rick Booye, who founded Trail Christian Fellowship Church 40 years ago, said that he was previously unaware of the lawsuit filed on Thursday. Booye had no further comment on the case at this time.
The Trail Christian Fellowship church has roughly 1,500 members, according to Booye.
Lawyers for Newport News police officer, day care provider, seek dismissal of sex-assault case
Peter DujardinDAILY PRESS |
Lawyers for a Newport News police officer and a home day care provider accused of sexually assaulting a girl beginning 11 years ago contend she fabricated the allegations.
The attorneys say the accuser, now 22, has been hospitalized several times for mental illness over the years, and they assert that she has falsely accused several other people — including her now ex-husband — of sexual abuse.
The police officer, Robert F. Jones, 47, and day care provider, Kristi Lynn Cline, 43, have a probable cause hearing Friday in Newport News Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. A judge will decide whether sufficient evidence exists to send the case to a grand jury.
Jones’ and Cline’s lawyers, Timothy Clancy and Ron Smith, say the accuser is not credible and the charges should be dismissed. “The Complainant has not only made allegations of rape and other sexual offenses against this Defendant,” Clancy wrote in a joint motion seeking the accuser’s psychiatric records. “She has also made similar allegations against her parents, brother, father-in law and husband, all of whom deny the allegations."
The woman didn’t go to police about the prior allegations, the motion said, but Smith said the attorneys interviewed her ex-husband and father-in-law.
The motion says the accuser has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder “and has had multiple inpatient hospitalizations in mental health facilities," including one in 2017.
Smith added Thursday that the accuser hired Cline to babysit her own baby — several years after the alleged sexual abuse. “Just using some common sense, you wouldn’t take your child to a day care provider who you say raped you," Smith said.
Newport News prosecutors recused themselves from the case because it involves a city police officer. The case is assigned to a Chesapeake Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Pass, who could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Court documents say the accuser came forward in June 2018, triggering a police investigation.
In 2008, the girl’s mother hired Cline to watch her after school, according to a criminal complaint filed earlier this year by a Newport News police detective. The complaint said Jones was a friend of Cline’s who “frequently” visited her.
The woman told police she was sexually assaulted four separate times in Cline’s home between 2008 and 2011 — beginning when she was 12 years old. She said Jones and Cline jointly took part in the sexual activity on three occasions, with Jones and the girl having sex a fourth time.
Jones, of Catalina Drive, began with the Newport News Police 12 years ago and is now on unpaid leave. He’s charged with forcible sodomy, carnal knowledge of a minor, two counts of rape, four counts of taking indecent liberties with a child, and one count of solicitation.
Cline, of Springwell Place in Denbigh, ran the home day care for 11 years. She is charged with two counts each of aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration, one count of carnal knowledge and three counts of indecent liberties.
Judge Frederick Aucamp, a retired Virginia Beach judge assigned to the case, granted the defense lawyers access to the psychiatric records, saying the defendants’ right to them outweighs the accuser’s right to privacy. Pass did not object to that request.
Aucamp also ruled that he would allow the accuser to be cross-examined on her past sexual assault allegations involving other family members.
Under a prior Virginia Supreme Court ruling, the state’s “rape shield law” — which protects victims from being grilled about their sexual past — doesn’t cover false allegations. Judges can allow questions about past allegations if there’s a “reasonable probability of falsity.”
Jones and Cline remain out on a $25,000 bond.
Two men and a woman arrested for
child sex abuse in Richmond, KY
Sara Kuhlchild sex abuse in Richmond, KY
Richmond Register
EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to the sensitivity and ages of those involved in the case, The Register will refer to the children as Victim 1, Victim 2, and so forth.
Richmond police arrested two men and a woman on abuse and sexual abuse charges involving children younger than 12 after one of the children said they didn't feel safe around one of the men because he sexually abuses the child.
Victim 1 said the abuse started when they were about 9 years old, and that it occurred daily since then, the citation states. Victim 1 said Rose often went into their bedroom while Valerie Spivey, 32, Race Street, Richmond, is asleep, to abuse them and that it sometimes happened during the daytime, too.
Spivey, who is married to Rose, said she has seen Rose grab Victim 1 inappropriately about 30-40 times, according to his citation. However, Spivey told police she didn't want to believe it and didn't want her husband to get in trouble. She said she also never said anything to Rose about it.
Spivey told police she got jealous of Victim 1 because Victim 1 "was getting all of the attention from her husband," her citation states. She said there was a time when Rose walked to the kitchen to get something to drink, but when she went to see where he was, she found him standing at the foot of Victim 1's bed.
Victim 1 said Rose would threaten to take things away from Victim 1 or not buy Victim 1 things if they didn't do what he asked of them or if they told anyone what happened, Rose's citation states. Victim 1 also said Rose tried to force Victim 1 to perform oral sex and to force Victim 1 to kiss Rose on his lips. Victim 1 said Rose also showed the child pictures of Spivey performing oral sex.
Victim 1 said that sometimes when they got out of the shower, they noticed Rose's phone under or over the door taking pictures of the child, his citation states. When police talked with Rose about the pictures, which officers found on his phone, he said his finger accidentally hit the button.
Victim 1 said they always try to fight and squirm to get away from him, but Rose said he would sometimes tickle them, but that he is not doing anything wrong, his citation states. He admitted to tickling Victim 1's stomach and pelvic area, and sometimes he has touched Victim 1's genitals "by accident" while tickling the child. He also admitted to smacking and grabbing Victim 1's butt.
When asked if he thought Victim 1 was lying, he wouldn't say that Victim 1 was lying, only that "'I do not know where (they) got that from,' or 'I do not know why (they) would say that,'" the citation reads. He said if anything ever happened, it was an accident.
During the interview with the children, another one of them (Victim 2) said Rose would spank them with his hand and belt, Rose's citation continues. Victim 2 said Rose would usually hit their butt, but sometimes misses and hits their legs, causing marks and bruises. Victim 2 had a mark on their leg during the interview that they said was from Rose hitting them with a belt.
When officers spoke with Spivey, she said she also spoke with another family member, who agreed they thought Rose was abusing the children, her citation states.
According to Sparks' citation, Victim 3 said they were scared of Sparks "'because he touches me.'" Police asked Victim 3 where Sparks had touched them, and they pointed toward their genitals, the citation states.
Victim 3 had previously said Sparks touched them inappropriately, but he wasn't charged. Instead, a prevention plan was put in place stating he wasn't allowed near the children alone, but Spivey said she never followed it.
Spivey said that after it was put in place, she went into Victim 2's bedroom where the child was alone with Sparks, her citation states. She said she noticed Sparks pulling his pants and zipping them.
Spivey said at a different time, she found a used condom under Victim 2's bed, her citation states. She said she believed it came out of a trash bag she was carrying somehow and fell under Victim 2's bed.
Sparks initially denied having any sexual contact with any of the children involved in the case, the citation states. However, after more discussion, Sparks said he wanted to apologize to Victim 3.
After police asked him what he would like to apologize to the child for, Sparks said he would say he was sorry for touching Victim 3, the citation states.
He eventually went into more detail about the incident; however, he "did not admit to any further sexual contact with any of the children involved in the case," the citation states.
Rose, Spivey and Sparks were taken to the Madison County Detention Center, where all three remained Thursday afternoon, according to online jail records.
Rose is charged with first-degree attempted rape (victim younger than 12), first-degree sexual abuse (victim younger than 12), first-degree criminal abuse (victim younger than 12), fourth degree assault (domestic violence), use of a minor (younger than 16) in a sexual performance and attempted incest (victim younger than 12).
Spivey is charged with first-degree criminal abuse (child younger than 12).
Sparks is charged with first-degree sexual abuse (victim younger than 12).
4 kids removed from ‘horrendous’ Texas home;
couple face charges
BY DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.Star Telegram
FORT WORTH
Four children who authorities say had been living in “horrendous” conditions have been removed from a Parker County mobile home trailer, while their mother and stepfather face multiple charges, the sheriff said.
The children were living in the mobile home on some property while their stepfather and mother lived in a separate camper trailer nearby, authorities said.
Authorities did not provide any other details on the children, such as their ages or genders.
Amanda Nicole Fuller, 34, and Colten Wayne Lackey, 20, were booked Thursday into the Parker County Jail in Weatherford. They remained in the jail Sunday.
Here again is an example of a couple being arrested for deplorable treatment of children, where the woman is considerably older than the man. It's curious how often this happens.
The children were taken out of their home last month, and investigators executed a search warrant on the homes Thursday evening in the 5000 block of Upper Denton Road in Parker County.
“The conditions of the homes were nothing short of disgraceful,” said Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler in a Friday news release. “Without seeing it, you would not believe how truly bad it was.”
A pit bull/boxer also was found chained to a living room floor, living in feces and trash. Two other dogs were chained to a bed while three additional dogs were chained outside in a yard, authorities said.
While the kids were in foster care, one of the children made an outcry to authorities, accusing the stepfather of sexual abuse and child pornography, according to the news release.
Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said in the news release one of the children also reported the mother knew of the abuse allegations, but she did not act on them or report them.
Fuller and Lackey tested positive for methamphetamine. “Their drug tests registered to the highest level detectable,” the sheriff said.
In their search Thursday, authorities discovered the chained dogs along with two baggies of a crystal substance which tested positive for methamphetamine. Deputies also seized drug paraphernalia, one dozen cell phones, digital cameras, several laptops and computer discs.
Please, if you are a parent and you're hooked on drugs, either get off them or get away from your children. Drugs cause parents to do unbelievably horrible things to their children. Please, act before you get to that place. You children don't deserve to suffer for your weakness.
The dogs are receiving care at the Parker County animal shelter.
Authorities began an investigation last month after officials with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services removed the children from their home because of parental drug use, child neglect and poor living conditions, the sheriff said.
“These children will no longer have to live under the abusive, neglectful and awful conditions any longer,” Fowler said. “They are now on the road to recovery.”
Fuller was in custody Sunday in lieu of $20,000 bail, facing a charge of possession of a controlled substance.
Lackey was in the Parker County Jail on Sunday in lieu of $50,000 bail. He faces a charge of indecency with a child/sexual contact. He had warrants for a traffic violation and failure to appear in court.
The sheriff said an investigation continued and additional charges are anticipated.
Parker Co., Tx
Ex-megachurch pastor: I did nothing wrong
in orphanage sex-abuse scandal
The Columbus DispatchBy Amanda Garrett, Akron Beacon Journal, GateHouse Media Ohio
Tears streamed down the cheeks of former Hudson pastor Tom Randall last month as he recounted what happened after a 2014 human trafficking raid at an orphanage he and his wife, Karen, founded in the Philippines.
Randall was arrested on charges of obstructing the investigation and released 22 days later. Charges against him were dropped, but the scandal lingered until leaders of Christ Community Chapel (CCC) asked him to resign in June.
Two months later, CCC released a 27-page report written by a former FBI agent and church member that concluded sexual abuse likely happened at the orphanage and that Randall hadn’t been honest with church leaders.
Until now, Randall — who has never been accused of sexual wrongdoing at the orphanage but of protecting those who were — declined to speak publicly about his departure from the church or the CCC report’s findings.
But he and his wife, accompanied by three men who support them, agreed to meet with an Akron Beacon Journal reporter last month at their home in Stow.
Boxes were already packed for a planned move out of state, but photos of the Randalls still hung on the walls, illustrating many of their Christian mission trips across the U.S. and Philippines over more than 30 years before everything came crashing down.
“We tried to ignore it,” Tom Randall said. “We have nothing to defend and we’ve done nothing wrong.”
‘We love our church’
Yet the Randalls hold no bitterness for the 4,000 people who attend CCC weekly or their lead pastor, Joe Coffey, who steadfastly defended Randall before abruptly changing his stance in August. “We love our church and we love Joe Coffey,” Randall said.
Randall instead blames his troubles on Joe Mauk — Randall’s longtime best friend, business partner and fellow Christian missionary in the Philippines.
Mauk, Randall said, had a falling out with the man Randall paid to run the orphanage and to distribute cash payments from Randall’s nonprofit World Harvest Ministries to other Christian missions in the Philippines, and things spiraled downward from there.
The Beacon Journal last month also met separately with Mauk. He lives in the Philippines but was in Tallmadge visiting a cousin who once attended CCC. His cousin said she left the church after Coffey and other CCC leaders refused for years repeated attempts by her and others to acknowledge court records and other documents from the Philippines that contradicted Randall’s account of what happened at the orphanage.
Under increasing pressure, CCC late last year hired the former FBI agent who ultimately relied on many of those same documents to conclude sexual abuse likely happened at the orphanage.
Mauk said that he never had an issue with the man who ran the orphanage — Toto Luchavez — until he learned of the abuse allegations against him. “I think Toto was afraid of me and may have been poisoning Tom’s mind against me,” said Mauk, who for decades considered Randall closer to him than a brother.
Now Randall is trying to make Mauk the villain of his own story, Mauk said. “But all I’ve done is tell the truth,” Mauk said.
Allies in Philippines
Ohio probably never would have known anything about Sankey Orphanage and the abuse allegations 8,000 miles away if CCC’s Coffey hadn’t recruited Randall to work part time at the Hudson megachurch.
Neither Randall nor Mauk have any close ties here. Randall and his wife moved from Oklahoma to Stow to work at CCC in 2013 just a couple of months before the orphanage was raided and Randall was arrested. Mauk’s only local tie is his cousin who once attended CCC.
But Randall and Mauk’s connection is strong and goes back about 30 years. They met in the Philippines while working on separate nondenominational Christian missions. Randall was part of a sports ministry that traveled the country doing basketball camps, which sometimes stopped at Bible schools where Mauk worked.
Randall met Toto Luchavez about the same time after watching him fighting spiders, a popular and brutal sport among many rural children in the Philippines. Luchavez kept his fighting spider in a sort of matchbox. When he slid back the lid, a spider, with a string tied around one of its legs, would crawl onto his hand, Randall said.
Children prod their spiders to fight each other to the death. And Luchavez and his spiders were very good, Randall said. “I thought this guy, if he could do this, he could be wonderful,” Randall said. He first paid Luchavez to work as his caddy, then to wash his car.
“Toto was honest and hardworking” and very poor. When Randall won a refrigerator he couldn’t use, he offered it to Luchavez, who was thrilled. But what Randall hadn’t realized, he said, was that Luchavez didn’t have electricity, so his family used the refrigerator as a closet to store clothes.
Randall said he taught Luchavez English and how to drive a car before ultimately putting him to work as a sort of bodyguard and money man. “There’s a lot of danger in what we do,” Randall said because people perceived to have money in the Philippines are often robbed or extorted.
Randall said his mission has spent millions in the Philippines over the years and all of it in cash “because that’s the way people do business.” Luchavez started out accompanying Randall to the bank as a guard and ultimately — sometime after Randall and his wife launched the orphanage around 1998 — Randall’s point person for both the orphanage and Randall’s other work in the Philippines when Randall was living full time in the U.S.
Abuse allegations
Sankey Samaritan Orphanage didn’t operate like many orphanages. About 30 children who lived there were not put up for adoption. Most of the kids came from nearby families, but ended up at the orphanage because their families couldn’t afford to feed or care for them or because they were abused.
Tom and Karen Randall said they decided, when they reached maximum capacity at the orphanage under Philippine law, to care for the group of children until they were through high school and college. “Our goal was to raise young men and women who loved the Lord, were patriotic to their country and who gave back” to society, Karen Randall said.
In 2013 — when allegations of sexual abuse first arose — many of the children who lived at the orphanage were teens or young adults. Mauk said he learned about the complaints from one of his adult daughters after a child there confided in her.
He telephoned Randall with the disturbing news. He said he was fully expecting his best friend to handle it, but also advised Randall against telling Toto Luchavez — who was accused of forcibly kissing wards of the orphanage — fearing the Luchavez would coach the children on what to say to authorities or worse, retaliate against them.
Randall, who wasn’t scheduled to return to the Philippines for six weeks, said he took immediate action. He notified Philippines children’s services about the allegations and, against Mauk’s advice, he also told Luchavez. “I told him he could do office work, but no working with the kids,” Randall said, adding that further complaints could have been filed if he hadn’t told Luchavez.
Randall arrived in the Philippines as scheduled and he, Luchavez and Luchavez’s son were arrested during a raid that removed all of the children from the orphanage a couple of weeks later.
‘I feel damaged’
In Hudson, Coffey immediately came to Randall’s defense, rallying CCC to prayer and action for Randall even though, within days, Mauk’s cousin said she started warning Coffey and others that there was more to the orphanage allegations than Randall was telling them.
Coffey for years dismissed those concerns, even after several women started standing outside the church on Sundays holding signs seeking justice for the orphanage. The women also launched a website — justiceforsankey.com — carefully documenting the abuse allegations and both the responses of Philippine authorities and CCC.
Finally, under outside pressure from Greater Akron’s Christian community, CCC leaders hired church member and former FBI agent Suzanne Lewis-Johnson to review what happened in the Philippines.
The Randalls thought the matter should have ended when a judge in the Philippines dropped all charges in the case. But they agreed to meet with Lewis-Johnson in November and again in January, hopeful her review would finally fully exonerate Tom Randall. “It was awesome. It was great,” at first, Randall said. “We felt like we were on the same page.”
But in June, CCC leaders asked Randall to resign after those seeking justice for the orphanage discovered Randall had faked an email supporting his version of what happened in the Philippines and given it to the church in someone else’s name. “I made a mistake and ... I’m sorry about that,” Randall said about the email.
The mood had changed in August when CCC leaders visited the Randalls’ home to tell them Lewis-Johnson had finished her review. “It was like they were at a funeral,” Randall said.
The Randalls asked if they could make changes or additions to the review, but church leaders declined and told them the review had already been shared with the Akron Beacon Journal, the Randalls said.
They said Lewis-Johnson failed to contact some of the people in the Philippines the Randalls had suggested to her, people who could vouch for them. They also said they suspect Lewis-Johnson believed everything Mauk told her, information the Randalls said was entirely thirdhand or not completely true.
Mauk stands by his account, saying it is backed up by court records, children’s services records, affidavits and others. He said he’s satisfied the orphanage is closed and Philippine law will forever ban Luchavez and his son from working with children.
The Randalls said they plan to spend the next few months traveling across the U.S. meeting with supporters of their former nonprofit — World Harvest Ministries — to gain support for their newly forming nonprofit called Revelation 12:11.
The name refers to a Bible verse that reads: “They triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
“I feel damaged by what has happened,” Tom Randall said. “But I never felt the Lord didn’t love me,” he said. “Me and Jesus, me and Karen, we’re good.”
Marlow, OK, man pleads guilty, sentenced in
child sexual abuse case
By Charlene Belew The Duncan Banner A Marlow man entered a guilty plea before a Stephens County judge this week to charges of battery and sexual abuse and will face five years behind bars.
Jeremy Alan Metts, 46, of Marlow, plead guilty to two counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of sexual battery in a case from 2018 with an underage victim.
The victim filed a report on Sept. 7, 2018, with the Grady County Sheriff’s office, stating on three different occasions Metts inappropriately touched the victim, twice in the victim’s home and once in a car outside the home after Metts drove the victim home from a prom party.
The Grady County Sheriff’s Office turned the case over to the Marlow Police Department shortly after the report was made. On Sept. 13, 2018, according to the report, Officer Antonio Aguilera interviewed the victim. A family member of the victim provided a video statement to law enforcement, confirming the victim confided in the witness after each incident. The witness reported Metts hugged the victim from behind and was repeatedly touching, hugging and sitting close to the victim.
Police received a second report from one of the victim’s friends, stating the victim confided in the second witness as well. The report states the witness observed Metts showing more affection than she thought appropriate. Metts also reportedly sent Snapchat messages stating he loved and missed the victim.
The police reported calling Metts for a statement, to which he responded that he had already secured counsel and police would need to speak with his attorney first.
Metts was supposed to stand trial in Stephens County in April 2019. He entered his guilty plea Oct. 2 when he was sentenced to 13 years for count one plus $1,000 fine and court costs, 13 years for count two plus $500 and court costs, 10 years for count three plus a $500 fine and court costs, and 10 years for count four plus a $500 fine and court costs. However, all but the first five years of the sentence was suspended and all counts are to run concurrently.
Wow! What a deal!
Metts will be subject to probation or parole for no less than two years after his sentence, which he must complete 85 percent of before eligibility.
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