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A Louisiana Republican official and pastor has stepped again from his submit as headmaster of a Christian college after his second arrest in two months over alleged cruelty to kids.
John Raymond, pastor of Slidell’s New Horizon church and an elected member of the St. Tammany Republican Parish Govt Committee, was arrested Monday by the Slidell Police Division and charged with second diploma cruelty to juveniles.
The arrest stems from an incident at Lakeside Christian Academy, a kindergarten by means of twelfth grade college that he based and led. Raymond is accused of abusing a 4-year-old pre-Ok scholar on a number of events, together with holding him the wrong way up by the ankles and repeatedly whipping him on the buttocks.
The college despatched a letter to oldsters and workers Monday saying that Raymond was taking a voluntary go away of absence, NOLA.com reported.
Final month, Raymond was arrested on three counts of cruelty to juveniles after he was reported for allegedly taping three college students’ mouths shut as punishment for “extreme speaking” the month earlier than.
Since that arrest, different witnesses have come ahead to report further incidents, some relationship way back to 2017, based on a information launch from the police division.
There have been a number of reported incidents involving the pre-Ok scholar. Police stated the kid would generally have “tantrums” the place he would cry and scream. To stop the boy from doing so on one event, Raymond allegedly positioned his hand over the kid’s nostril and mouth till he went limp.
In accordance with police, a workers member informed Raymond to cease after observing the boy was having problem respiratory and was unable to face. In one other incident, the kid was allegedly dragged throughout a ground by his ankles after he refused to go away with Raymond.
Police stated their investigation was ongoing as they interviewed further witnesses linked to different allegations towards Raymond. He was launched Monday on a $7,500 bond.
After final month’s incident, Raymond defended himself in a press release on the college’s web site. He argued that he gave the disruptive college students a selection: “We are able to both go downstairs and name your dad and mom and you may wait within the foyer to be suspended, or you will get tape in your mouth and learn to be quiet throughout class.”
“The scholars all selected tape and I pulled off one piece at a time and thoroughly positioned it over their mouths ensuring that it didn’t contact their nostril or intervene with their respiratory. At no time was tape wrapped round any scholar’s head,” he wrote.
Raymond can be a member of the Republican State Central Committee, the governing physique of the Louisiana Republican Get together. In 2018, he ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana Home of Representatives.
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