Reporter Carter Coyle of WCSC TV-5 (CBS – Charleston, South Carolina) dropped a bombshell on the Palmetto Lowcountry this week with a report alleging that the Charleston County school district promoted an employee after finding child pornography on his government-issued laptop computer.
Not only that, two children have alleged that the employee in question – the late Marvin Gethers – sexually assaulted them in the aftermath of this discovery.
Coyle’s meticulously documented report is based on district personnel records and police reports. It dominated the station’s evening reports on Thursday, occupying the first six minutes of airtime on the station’s 6:00 p.m. EDT newscast.
Gethers was employed by the district from 2000 to 2007 and again from 2010 to 2016. In January of 2014, district technology specialists found child pornography on his laptop during what was described as a “routine virus scan.”
“Multiple images were found showing children engaged in sexual activity with other children as well as images of children engaged in sexual activity with adults,” a law enforcement affidavit noted.
Astoundingly, it took nearly two months for them to turn Gethers’ laptop over to the North Charleston police department.
From there, it took another two years for the Charleston County sheriff’s office to return its forensic analysis of the computer – which revealed “12,363 entries for pornographic websites and searches for pornography” along with “9,504 pornographic images, 42 of which involved minors.”
All the while, Gethers continued to work at Dunston elementary school – and actually received a promotion and pay raise from the district in October 2014, a little over nine months after the child porn was found on his laptop.
“Our investigation shows Gethers continued working at the elementary school and allegedly molested two children at the school while the investigation was in a holding pattern,” Coyle noted in her report.
[timed-content-server show=’2018-Jan-17 00:00:00′ hide=’2018-Oct-22 00:00:00′] [su_dominion_video_scb] [/timed-content-server]Yeah …
Gethers died last July of heart failure while awaiting trial on the sexual assault charges. One alleged victim reportedly received a $300,000 payout.
We honestly don’t know where to begin with this story – other than to say it is a staggering failure on the part of both district officials and law enforcement to protect vulnerable children from harm.
Also it was profoundly disappointing to see the Charleston school district respond with flippant dismissiveness to Coyle’s questioning – refusing to grant any on-camera interview requests and providing a terse, unfeeling three-sentence statement to her.
Way to take responsibility, educrats …
That reminds us: It is important to congratulate Coyle on an amazing piece of investigative journalism. This is precisely the sort of reporting local mainstream media outlets are supposed to engage in when institutions fail to discharge their duties and try to hide it from the public – leaving those they are supposed to be serving needlessly exposed to danger and depravity.
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