Registered sex offender faces federal child sex charges

Church group hasn’t said if volunteer driver’s background was checked.

Registered sex offender Jordy D. Leedy will remain behind bars while being federally prosecuted for allegedly sexually assaulting two young boys he met in 2012 as a volunteer bus driver for Target Dayton Ministries.

Leedy, 46, of Franklin, passed a four-hour polygraph test, according to defense attorney Anthony VanNoy, who represented Leedy at a Wednesday hearing in Cincinnati’s U.S. District Court.

“He has maintained his innocence around these statements,” VanNoy told this news organization. “He has represented that he has done nothing illegal or improper with these youth.”

Neither Senior Pastor/Director Mark Stevens nor anyone else from Target Dayton Ministries responded to multiple efforts for comment about whether Leedy had his background checked to be volunteer.

“It’s just so easy for a predator to find their way into your organization and take advantage and exploit children if they’re not background checked,” said Leslie Sheward, president of the Twin Towers Neighborhood Association in East Dayton near the ministry on Xenia Avenue. “You have to be vigilant from all aspects.”

Leedy was shackled and wore orange and white Butler County Jail clothing when U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Stephanie Bowman ruled that he remain incarcerated. VanNoy said Leedy’s business includes making T-shirts and developing mobile applications.

Leedy, a one-time area youth hockey coach, is charged with aggravated sexual abuse of a minor less than 12 years of age. If convicted, he faces life in federal prison. Leedy’s next court appearance is set for April 22.

Target Dayton Ministries, which counts Datyon Mayor Nan Whaley as a volunteer, bills itself as a church for the poor and homeless and says on its website that it provided more than 45,000 hot meals last year. A man inside the ministry said Wednesday morning that Stevens and/or his wife Cindi were working on a public statement.

A criminal complaint written by a Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office detective working with a Federal Bureau of Investigation task force alleged that Leedy met the boys when they were 7 and 8 years old.

The detective wrote that the abuse took place over the course of two years and occurred in numerous jurisdictions and states, making this a federal case.

“Leedy would go to poorer neighborhoods in the Dayton area and give rides to those who needed assistance from the ministry,” wrote Det. Donald Minnich. “Leedy showed an interest in the boys after taking them back to their residence.”

Leedy served two years in prison after a 2002 Montgomery County Common Pleas Court conviction for gross sexual imposition of a minor less than 13 years old. He was required to register his address after his release in 2004.

Leedy pleaded no contest in 2003 to having inappropriate sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy that he met through a Big Brother program, according to court documents.

Leedy had served as assistant coach of the Dayton Bluehawks Squirt AA hockey team and a youth volunteer at several area churches. Prosecutors said then that evidence showed Leedy — who admitted to being molested as a child — may have had other victims, but those cases weren’t prosecuted.

In the federal complaint, the detective wrote that Leedy went to the boys’ residence on a nightly basis, began tucking them into bed and bought them clothes and games. Leedy allegedly said his name was “Jordan” Leedy, and the boys’ mother didn’t find anything bad when searching that name online.

According to the complaint, detectives said Leedy would shower with the boys, touch their private parts, engage in oral sex and attempt anal sex.

Eventually, the document said, Leedy would take them for trips to the zoo, Kings Island, Cincinnati Reds baseball games and then to out-of-state locations in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. No other adults stayed at the hotels with the boys or Leedy.

Leedy helped the boys attend East Dayton Christian School and told the boys to call him “papa” and would get upset if they didn’t, the complaint said.

Fairborn police told the boys’ parents following an argument with Leedy and the boys’ father in September 2015 that Leedy was a registered sex offender. The boys were interviewed multiple times at Michael’s House Advocacy Center in Fairborn.

Leedy made a video compilation of the trips that he emailed to child protective services in an attempt to show how well he treated the boys.

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