Parents Shocked as School Cop Arrested for Kidnapping and Raping Student

Durham, NC — Bond has been set at 2.5 million dollars for a Durham North Carolina school resource officer accused of kidnapping a child and having sexual relations with her. Deputy Christopher Kelly, 40, was charged with, Statutory Sex Offense with a Child, First Degree Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, Second Degree Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, Indecent Liberties with a Child, Sex Acts with a Student, and Second Degree Kidnapping. He is currently being held for “safe keeping” in prison.

Kelly, who was fired at the end of April as a result of the charges, was the school resource officer at Northern High School in Durham. “I think like anyone else he’s nervous, he’s scared and he’s wanting to have his day in court,” said Daniel Meier attorney for the former officer who was allegedly supposed to have been protecting the students from someone like himself.

The teenage victim’s father said Kelly approached him, and much like an Uncle/niece type of relationship wanted to mentor his daughter. “It seemed appropriate at the time,” the father said discussing the relationship with reporters from Eyewitness News 11.

As The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous occasions, pedophiles will try to befriend the family of their targeted victim in an attempt to gain their trust, only to abuse their children later. According to court documents, the sexual relationship started in July of 2016 and lasted until April of 2017.

Kelly, who’s married and has three children of his own, had been with the Durham Sheriff’s Office for four years, and was considered reliable enough, apparently, to work with high schoolers at both Hillside and Northern. But placing Kelly into the schools has now turned into a scandalous mistake if these allegations against him hold up in court.

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“I really have nothing to say to him (Kelly),” said the father as he seemingly choked back the tears and anguish.

Kelly will return to court on July 19th for his next appearance. However, if the charges against him are true and he’s found guilty, the damage to the 15-year-old’s life has already been done. She now has to live the rest of her life knowing someone, a police officer no less, robbed her of her innocence.

According to the Durham Herald-Sun;

Detectives discovered explicit photos on Kelly’s cellphone of a video “chat session” with a minor in which the girl is completely naked. An arrest warrant states Kelly did “induce and encourage a minor” to engage in sexual activity and take part in video chat sessions “in which the juvenile would perform sexual acts and/or the defendant would take part in sexual acts.”

Sheriff Mike Andrews released the following statement which reads in part;

When one of our own is accused of abusing the trust we work hard to earn, it is both disheartening and devastating to all involved. Our thoughts are with the family at the center of this ongoing investigation. The Sheriff’s Office will continue to work with the Durham County District Attorney’s Office, and we will respect the judicial system in the next phase of this process.

Kelly’s sick relationship with the victim goes back to the 2014-15 school year when he was a school resource officer at Carrington Middle School. It seems his infatuation with the victim led him to follow her to Northern High School where he served as an off-duty school resource officer even though he was permanently assigned to Hillside High.

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Because this police officer served in three different schools, we are asking parents of children at those three schools to speak with their children about Kelly. If there are other victims out there, now’s the time to come forward. If your daughter or son was a student at Carrington Middle, Hillside High, or Northern High School, take a few moments and have that hard talk with your child about pedophiles. As statistics show it is likely that there is more than one victim.

Elite Private School Attended by JFK, Exposed as Long-Time Haven for Child Sex

After a female student contracted herpes from her English teacher, parents of the girl, who sent her to Choate Rosemary Hall, in Wallingford, Connecticut, filed a grievance with the elite boarding school. The incident was just one of dozens dating back to the 1960’s, according to a report released by the school this week.

On another occasion, a “Spanish teacher named Jaime Rivera-Murillo is said to have raped a 17-year-old student in a swimming pool after drinking heavily with a group of students.” Murillo was “fired for ‘just cause,” but he went on to work at several other Connecticut schools, including as the principal of a high school in Litchfield County. He resigned from that post this month after the Choate investigator contacted him and the district superintendent,” writes the New York Times.

In a letter co-authored by Michael J. Carr ’76 Chair, Board of Trustees and Alex Curtis, the school’s Headmaster, the two discussed how the investigation into sexual misconduct at the school began.

Sexual misconduct at Choate Rosemary first came to light in an October 2016 article published in the Boston Globe. The Globe interviewed Cheyenne Montgomery, an alumna from the class of 1992, who said her French teacher, Bjorn Runquist was engaged in a sexual relationship with her while she was a senior and he was her dorm advisor. She later told The New York Times it wasn’t the first time she’d been abused at the school. She said in an interview with the times, as a Sophomore, she was engaged in a physical relationship with her Math teacher, Angus Mairs, one she felt to be a boyfriend-girlfriend type of relationship. It was only after she confided in Mr. Runquist what had taken place with Mairs, that she began a sexual relationship with the French teacher.

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Montgomery told the Globe, “Choate chose to protect the perpetrator instead of the victim — and set up the potential for there to be future victims.” And indeed, there were more victims…many more.

After the news went public of child sexual abuse taking place at Choate Rosemary Hall, the Board of Directors was forced to confront the allegations of long-standing abuse and cover-up going on at the elite private school from which many in the Kennedy family graduated, including JFK and his brother Joseph. The letter from the two school’s leaders described how they went about finally addressing the issues. “The centerpiece of Choate’s plan was to conduct an independent investigation into reports of adult sexual misconduct in the history of Choate Rosemary Hall, the Choate School, and Rosemary Hall.”

Apparently seeking an outside, independent, professional to get to the bottom of each and every allegation, “The School retained Nancy Kestenbaum of Covington & Burling LLP, a former federal prosecutor, to conduct an investigation of such reports.”

Key to Kestenbaum’s success would be participation from alumni. The letter states in previous correspondence, the school asked everyone to be forthcoming. “Perhaps most important, we asked you to share your experiences with Ms. Kestenbaum and her team so that we could learn as much as possible about historic instances of misconduct,” the letter reads. Transparency was something the school wasn’t used to, according to some of those closest to the knowledge of abuse taking place at the elite boarding school.

Kestenbaum’s report has now been completed. In it, she described the school as actually fostering a climate whereby abuse could thrive. “Even when a teacher was terminated or resigned in the middle of the school year because he or she had engaged in sexual misconduct with a student, the rest of the faculty was told little and sometimes nothing about the teacher’s departure and, when told, was cautioned to say nothing about the situation if asked,” the report describes.

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All in all, “12 adults previously affiliated with Choate who engaged in sexual misconduct with students between 1963 and 2010: John Joseph, William (Bill) Maillet, Kenneth Mills, Frederic (Rick) Lyman, Watson (Chip) Lowery, Adam Hardej, Jean-Marc Dautrey, Angus Mairs, Bjorn Runquist, William (Bill) Cobbett, Jaime Rivera-Murillo, and Charles (Chuck) Timlin.”

Unfortunately, the law of averages will lead many to believe there are likely more victims who have not yet come forward. Of the 12 listed above, five are already dead and none except Runquist could be reached for comment. The former French teacher, now an outed predator, says his relationship with Montgomery was an “isolated” one and says it was an “extremely painful” time in his life.

Along with the release of the report comes an apology from the school’s leaders, as well. The letter reads, “we again offer our deepest apologies to the survivors of adult sexual misconduct. We pledge to take ongoing steps to be at the forefront of the highest possible standard of care in preventing and addressing sexual misconduct at Choate consistent with our unwavering commitment to maintaining a safe community for those who are on campus now and for those still to come.”

We at The Free Thought Project, believe, when it comes to child safety, apologies simply aren’t good enough. Not only do surviving adult victims of child predators need to be sufficiently compensated monetarily for their pain and suffering resulting from the dereliction of duty but school leaders also must face criminal prosecution for their crimes, no matter how old they are and what statute of limitations exist.

Famous Anti-Gay Pastor Found Guilty on 8 Counts of Child Molestation

A Georgia pastor has been convicted on eight charges of molesting a teenage girl and boy in his church seven years ago. The jury took less than an hour to find Reverend Kenneth Atkins, 57, guilty of all the charges brought against him. Atkins, a convicted felon who has also reportedly been married four times (fathering ten children), was the only member of his family present in the courtroom as his verdict was being read. Ironically, the outspoken pastor was somewhat infamous for being anti-gay.

When The Pulse nightclub, in 2016, was attacked by lone gunman Omar Mateen, and dozens of gay partygoers were murdered, Bishop Atkins, as he’s known, said in a tweet, the victims “got what they deserved.” But now, it seems, Pastor Atkins is getting what he deserves.

Some of Adkins" recent tweets. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/y2WjzKRTa8

— Russell Colburn (@RussellANjax) August 26, 2016

The Georgia pastor was first charged in August of 2016, with one male victim coming forward with allegations of molestation. As is often the case when pedophilia is involved, the victim is often blamed. Charlotte Atkins, the pastor’s wife, made the following comment about AJ, the victim in the case. “The young man was part of our teen ministry. We loved him as part of our church family. He is a deeply troubled young man to be sure,” she said adding, “Our prayers and our thoughts go out to him and remain with him even now.”

But it wasn’t prayer the pastor was apparently after when he allegedly molested the man. And as is often the case, pedophiles do not have just one victim. As The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous occasions, pedophiles have on average over 250 victims during their lifetimes, a sad statistic which may serve to demonstrate justice rarely comes to victims of molestation. Pedophiles continue to victimize as those abused stay silent out of fear or shame.

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According to Jacksonville’s News 4, “The accuser, now 22, said Adkins molested him after he joined the Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship in 2009. The prosecutor claims that Adkins would take the boy to school and buy him gifts before eventually asking to watch him and his 15-year-old girlfriend have sex.”

According to reports, the pastor wanted to make sure they were “doing it right.” The accuser, whose identity is being withheld, claims Adkins then touched her inappropriately as well. The accuser, who’s now an Army Specialist stationed at Fort Leavenworth, said the young couple had sex in front of the pastor so many times there was no way to keep count. They were watched having sex in the church, the car, and at the beach. As proof of their sexual relationship, the prosecution produced photos of the pastor’s private parts. Even though the prosecution produced eyewitness testimony as well as photographic images of the pastor’s genitalia, throughout the trial, Atkins maintained his innocence, even rejecting a plea deal offered to him by the prosecution.

When AJ took the stand, he told the court, “I respected him like someone that’s, like, my dad. So I would do, at that point, anything just to keep him around. So he wouldn’t leave like my dad,” the accuser said.” At one point in the trial, AJ said he still cared for the pastor but didn’t want anyone else to be harmed by his actions.

Also during the trial, Atkins spoke with reporters from jail. He defended his actions, and denied any culpability. He said, “I think we may have baptized him in the church. I was at that church for two months before I left and started another ministry and he came over along with a group of a bunch of kids. We had hundreds and hundreds of kids and he’s just one of the kids,” Adkins said. “They’re alleging I committed these things between Jan. 1, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2010, and during that whole year really, he was just one of several kids. We were so busy that year. That was my first, starting the church,” he told News 4.

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Atkins’ defense lawyer, Kevin Gough, said he will appeal as soon as the sentence is handed down on April 25th. He said at that time, he’ll file the paperwork for a new trial. Gough contends the state deliberately withheld pertinent evidence which could have cast a shadow of doubt about the mental stability of his accuser.

The unnamed girl, implicated in the sex show for the pastor, apparently lived with the pastor up until one month after the pastor was arrested. The prosecution stated she was completely under the control of the pastor. According to Savannah Now:

Five of the charges he’s guilty of relate to the female who denied anything of the sort happened. She lived with Adkins and his wife until about a month after his arrest.

“She’s in his clutches,” said Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper. “What he has done to that girl is not only criminal, it is deplorable.”

Atkins’ arrest and conviction are the latest in a decades-long scandal involving clergy in the United States. Arguably, the legal battles began with scandals involving the Catholic Church and have fanned outward to include a whole host of other denominations and faiths, as victims are finally having their voices heard in court.

We at The Free Thought Project encourage you, if you’re a victim, tell someone who will believe you first. Ask that person to accompany you to file a police report with a detective. Seek counsel with a qualified individual who has a stellar reputation for helping victims of sex crimes. Know that even though justice may never come for you in speaking out, you will likely be able to prevent someone else from becoming a victim.

Pedophile Cop Pleads Guilty to Raping & Impregnating Child He Was Mentoring

Lowell, NC — On Thursday, a fifty-one-year-old Lowell, NC police officer, James Blair, pleaded guilty to felony statutory rape of a child under 15. He could spend the next 19 years in prison for impregnating a 14-year-old girl he was supposed to have been mentoring. As The Free Thought Project first reported in September, Blair confessed his sin to the girl’s mother and begged her forgiveness. At the time of our first story, Blair was awaiting trial and had been on medical leave from his position since June.

In an interview with the mother, immediately following the guilty plea, she told WSOC-TV 9 that the whole incident, “destroyed my family.” “He manipulated my daughter. He manipulated my family. I would have never thought that an officer would have done this,” she said describing the hurt and pain they’ve been through.

“Like I said, my family is upside down, but we’re trying to pick up the pieces and we’re trying to move on. She told reporters that the teenager would carry the baby full term and that it would become part of their family. She stated she was a religious woman and abortion was not even a consideration. Yet she was very happy to hear the judge tell Blair to have no contact with her daughter as he was previously doing from jail. “We’ve got this new baby coming. We’re going to love this baby,” the mother told reporters.

Lowell, NC is a small town, located in Gaston County, and lies just outside Charlotte city limits. The sleepy little town was quite possibly unaware one of their boys in blue was bedding a 14-year-old girl and getting away with it, until the unnamed girl’s mother discovered the officer’s criminal actions. After learning her daughter was pregnant,  she read some of her text messages. The messages revealed Blair was the father of the baby and that he’d begged the teen to get an abortion.

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The mother filed a criminal complaint against the officer and turned the matter over to the SBI which investigated the allegations only to find the unthinkable was true. The veteran police officer had used his position of authority to engage in felonious sexual relations with the teen both in his squad car and at his home.

It all started when, to gain the mother’s trust, Blair told the mother he wanted the chance to show her that all cops weren’t bad and asked if he could mentor her. The mom reluctantly, and some might say naively agreed, and allowed the officer to spend more time with her daughter which, at some point in the relationship, included an overnight trip with her and her sister.

WSOC-TV’s Ken Lemon first broke the story and said in a broadcast the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) arrested Blair at the girl’s home after investigating the matter. The mother, whose identity is being protected to keep hidden the identity of the teen, told Lemon in a phone call, “We’ve lived in fear for so long!” She was very reluctant to file the complaint against the officer but hesitantly went through the process.

It’s important to understand how pedophiles operate. “There are family members, friends, and neighbors, even teachers, coaches and clergy who treat children better than most adults, listen to what they are really saying and strive to meet their emotional, physical and spiritual needs as a means of fulfilling their own sexual needs and desires. They’re often in positions of authority: clergy members, coaches, or police officers,” writes the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse.

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They use their position to gain access to children and teens. Then they groom their victims by convincing parents to allow the to spend time alone. Later, the pedophiles find some area of vulnerability in the child (some insecurity) and begin to speak kind and flattering words, until the child lowers their inhibitions and allows the pedophile to sexually exploit the child. Worse yet, pedophiles are hardly every arrested, leave, on average, 80 victims in their wake, and if charged, very rarely see the inside of a jail cell.

The victim often doesn’t see them self as such but have to be processed nonetheless. First, there’s the rape kit collection process, a medical procedure which seeks to collect DNA evidence to later be used in court. The process can also be invasive if a speculum is used. Detectives are then brought in, and ask a series of undoubtedly uncomfortable questions which force the victim to go into graphic detail with each and every sexual encounter. Together, the two steps in the process can be as traumatic as the attack itself.

Often, as The Free Thought Project has reported, the general public likes to comfortably rely on cliche expressions such as, “There’s only a few bad apples,” to describe bad cops. But with police officers, society demands a higher standard of accountability, and behavior. We’re happy the Lowell, NC mother was able to find some sense of peace and justice, but she herself is asking for other victims to come forward, believing the veteran officer has a history of sex crimes involving children. She says they should come forward and file a police report with the Lowell PD, or with any other department, or private event, the officer may have worked.

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As Claire Bernish stated in our first coverage of this story, “A growing number of officers, like Blair, have been responsible for heinous crimes — such as beating a motorist in need of medical aid, lying about murdering another, killing a K9 officer by leaving it in a sweltering patrol car for 38 hours, and plenty more. Until police begin actually policing their own, or ‘good’ cops begin speaking out en masse against the errant and their ilk, less and less of the public will have reason to respect the oft-manipulated badge.”