Puppy mill raid
Arnold convicted of killing baby
McCain's visit to Miami Valley
Northmont teacher had sex with student, police say
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
CLAYTON — Clayton police arrested a 36-year-old Northmont Middle School teacher Tuesday after gathering evidence that the man had sexual contact with a 14-year-old female student on three separate occasions since May.
Jason Simmons, who lives in Huber Heights, was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and is being held pending review of the case by local prosecutors. Gale Mabry, superintendent of Northmont schools, said the teacher has been placed on administrative leave until his case is resolved.
Extras
Richard Rose, Clayton's public safety director, said members of his police department heard rumors of a sexual relationship between a student and a teacher at Northmont Middle School about a week ago. "It was all third- and fourth-hand information at first," Rose said. "We didn't want it to be true, but when our detectives starting checking the story out, they learned there was some substance to the story."
The investigation led police to question the 19-year-old female cousin of the alleged victim, and the cousin was able to gather enough information to justify search warrants for the teacher's home in Huber Heights and an apartment in Englewood. A report from Clayton detective John Simmons said the evidence indicated the teacher "did have sexual intercourse with a (14-year-old) middle school student three times in three different locations."
The warrants were executed simultaneously Monday afternoon. Rose said Simmons was brought in for questioning Monday after the searches were conducted, and he requested that his lawyer be present during the interview. After waiting several hours for the attorney, Clayton police transported Simmons to jail.
Superintendent Mabry said the teacher was hired as an intervention specialist in 2004. Intervention specialists assist "special needs" students who require support to complete their educations.
Mabry said that, to the best of his knowledge, the 14-year-old victim in the case was not in any of the teacher's classes. He said the teacher is also an assistant coach in football and track, but he said those coaching jobs were at the high school and would not have involved contact with middle school students.
Simmons' personnel file indicates he is married with children, taught in Fairborn before coming to Northmont, and that he was educated at Wright State and Ohio State universities. He was evaluated in January, and there are no indications of problems in the evaluation or elsewhere in the file.
Simmons played football at Ohio State and served as team captain as a senior, according to The Northmont Thunderbolt Football Web site. Simmons also was a draft choice of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL in 1995 and was NFL-Europe Defensive Player of the Year in 1997 for the Scottish Claymores.
"My impression is that he is one of the nicest people you could meet. This is a shocking incident for all of us," Mabry said. "When the police contacted me late Monday afternoon, it was the first I had any inkling of anything being wrong."
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2395 or jcummings@DaytonDailyNews.com.
