A former teacher of the month faces up to life in prison after police allege he sent explicit images and “engage(d) in sexually obscene conversations” with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl online.
Former Harper Creek High School teacher Jason Burgess, 40, was one of four West Michigan men arrested in a sex sting set up last week by a Kent County Human Trafficking Task Force and the FBI that involved agents placing ads on social media posing as minors.
Probable cause affidavits state Burgess responded to the ads with explicit images and “engage(d) in sexually obscene conversations” before investigators searched his home on Aug. 9. Burgess allegedly admitted to the inappropriate interaction and was arrested and arraigned on three felonies: child sexually abusive activity, accosting a minor, and using a computer to communicate with another to commit a crime. The latter comes with a sentence of up to life in prison, WOOD reports.
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The website for the Harper Creek Optimist Club in Battle Creek confirms Burgess was selected by his principal at HCHS as teacher of the month in February 2022, when he won a free dinner and $50.
Harper Creek Community Schools Superintendent Rob Ridgeway confirmed Burgess resigned following his arrest in a letter to parents and staff on Thursday.
“The alleged criminal conduct concerns off-duty behavior unrelated to any district activities or students,” Ridgeway wrote. “The teacher has resigned their teaching position.”
Ridgeway said HCCS “took immediate action to ensure the safety of our students” and is cooperating with the investigation, according to WOOD.
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Others facing the same charges include Samuel Durham, 36, of East Grand Rapids; Justin Hastings, 40, of Comstock Park; and Thomas Ramsey, 66, of Wyoming. Hastings and Durham attempted to meet up with the officers posing as minors, according to the news site.
Two others remain under investigation and are expected to arrested, including one suspect from Indiana, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office said in a prepared statement.
“The FBI is fully committed to disrupting and preventing the exploitation of minors, and our collaboration with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office underscores the critical, life-saving efforts our agencies undertake every day,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Michigan. “Our state has no tolerance for trafficking and, with our partners, we will continue to identify and investigate these criminals for threatening our most vulnerable population.”
Kent County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Eric Brunner told WOOD the arrests underscore the importance of parents talking with their children about online predators.
“Every time we run one of these operations, there is always a suspect that is identified or apprehended. We know this is a problem. We know it’s going on in the underbelly of our community. It’s taking place over social media, over the internet, over the dark web,” Brunner said.
“We can have those conversations with our kids, we can be involved in their lives. If you can’t, push them toward a counselor, mentor or someone else that they can talk to about the struggles that are going on, the things that they are doing with technology,” he said. “That is the common thread we have here. This is all taking place across the internet or cellphones or computers.”
Burgess’ arrest is only the latest in a disturbing trend of teachers engaging in sexually abusive behavior with minors, both online and in schools, that has seemingly accelerated in recent years.
There’s been plenty of examples in Michigan just in 2024 alone.
In June, Grandville Police arrested 57-year-old Calvin Christian High School teacher Michael Hoekwater on two charges of criminal sexual conduct for allegedly “improper touching” of a student, WZZM reports.
The month prior, Wyandotte Police and Homeland Security Investigations arrested an unnamed Theodore Roosevelt High School teacher for soliciting sex from a child in an online sting, according to WXYZ.
In April, 26-year-old Nicholas Coe Young, who was fired from Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids in 2022 for providing alcohol to minors, was arrested on felony charges for alleged sex with a teen boy he met in class, WOOD reports.
A 31-year-old Grass Lake High School teacher was also charged in April with multiple felony counts for sharing inappropriate sexual images with at least two students, according to MLive.
Glen Lake Community Schools band director Elijah George, 26, was charged in February with surveilling an unclothed person and three counts of using a computer to commit a crime for allegedly taking inappropriate photos of students in class, according to Patch.com.
In January, former teacher John Dirk Vanpatten, 51, was arrested on multiple charges of criminal sexual conduct over an allegedly sexual relationship with a former student at Concord Academy in Petoskey, WWTV reports.