Fired Abstinence Promoter Suspended Earlier For Behavior
By Jeff Arnold
Times Record •
jarnold@swtimes.com
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 8:37 AM CDT
A Fort Smith man who previously worked with an organization promoting abstinence in local schools was “flirty†and was temporarily suspended by the organization earlier this year, according to a police report.
Tobias Patrick Lyons, 25, was arrested on suspicion of sexual indecency with a child Friday after he admitted asking a girl, who was 14 years old at the time, for sex, according to a police report.
Lyons worked for Fort Smith-based Reality Check, an affiliate of Tree of Life Preventative Health Maintenance, from October 2006 until he was fired Sept. 18; his personnel file obtained by the Sebastian County Prosecutors office revealed no disciplinary issues until January.
Cindy Crawford, Tree of Life chief executive officer, told Fort Smith police during an interview Sept. 30, that Lyons was fired about two weeks earlier when the father of the girl, now 15, called her.
The reason for termination listed on a personnel document was, “second offense of inappropriate contact with students via text messaging.â€
Crawford went on to tell police detective Anousack Vongphachanh that Lyons was known to flirt with girls and was suspended without pay in January for “e-mail correspondence with another student that was not work related,†according to a police report.
A discipline warning form in Lyon’s Reality Check personnel file shows he was suspended for five days in January for “inappropriate contact with female students through e-mail and MySpace.â€
Crawford, in a telephone interview Monday, said the January incident did not involve communications of a sexual nature, but the contact was still inappropriate because instructors are prohibited from having contact with students outside of school.
She also clarified a comment she made to police about Lyons’ flirting. Crawford said Vongphachanh asked if Lyons was a flirt, and Crawford said based on her daily interaction with Lyons she would describe him as having a “flirty†personality, but she didn’t mean to imply she believed he exhibited inappropriate behavior.
Lyon’s personnel file also contained a background check conducted when he was hired that revealed no criminal history and a confirmation from the Arkansas Department of Human Services that he was not on the child maltreatment central registry.
When Lyons was interviewed later in the day on Sept. 30, he told Vongphachanh he had talked “inappropriately†with the minor female, asked her to have sex with him and asked her to send him a picture of her in her underwear, which she did, according to a police report.
Lyons said he asked the girl to have sex with him when they were together one day at “UrSpace,†a storefront Tree of Life leased at Central Mall where students between 12 and 18 years old who are involved with Reality Check congregated on weekdays during the summer.
Lyons also told Vongphachanh about having inappropriate conversations with another minor female and that he met both girls at a Fort Smith junior high school through his work with Reality Check. The other minor has since moved out of state. Lyons then revealed that he asked a third minor female, whom he met at Ben Geren Regional Park, to send him nude photographs of herself, which she did by phone, according to police.
Police began investigating Lyons in mid-September when the minor female he solicited sex from attempted suicide and was taken to Sparks Regional Medical Center. A nurse believed she heard the girl talking to her father about sexual contact between her and an adult male.
Police determined the nurse misunderstood, but the girl’s father provided police with text messages exchanged between his daughter and Lyons the day she attempted suicide, in which she told him she loved him and Lyons asked her “to prove it,†according to a police report.
The girl also told Lyons she wanted to see him, but Lyons remained at home with his wife, who he said “knows everything between†him and the girl, according to a police report.
Lyons told police his relationship with the girl had faded away after he got married in June.
Before police sought a warrant for Lyons’ arrest, he consented to a search of his personal computer and iPhone. Both were seized by investigators.
Lyons was arrested Friday and freed on $25,000 bond the same day, with the additional conditions he have no contact with minor females and surrender his passport.
Before his arrest, Lyons told police he had planned to leave for a mission trip to Ireland on Saturday.
Deputy prosecuting attorney Ben Wulff and Sgt. Levi Risley, Fort Smith police, both said the investigation involving the minor female Lyons sought nude pictures from is ongoing.
Sexual indecency with a child is a Class D felony punishable by up to six years in prison.
