Former Huntsville superintendent, coach face charges they failed to report boys’ abuse

A sign labeling it as the "Crossroads of the Ozarks," welcomes visitors to Huntsville in Madison County. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FILE PHOTO)
A sign labeling it as the "Crossroads of the Ozarks," welcomes visitors to Huntsville in Madison County. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FILE PHOTO)

HUNTSVILLE -- The former superintendent of the school district and a former coach have been charged with failure to immediately call the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline to report accusations of sexual abuse among boys on the junior high school basketball team, Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said Wednesday.

Audra Kimball, the former superintendent, and Kaleb Houston, the former coach, are being charged with failure to notify by a mandated reporter in the first degree. The charge is a misdemeanor.

Kimball and Houston were issued summonses Tuesday to appear in Madison County District Court on Oct. 6.

"There are still potential charges against other officials," Durrett said.

Durrett said in early April he didn't file charges against the school officials initially because the requirements of the state's mandatory reporter statute didn't appear to apply, based on the evidence he had before him at that time.

Durrett said in early May he was reconsidering that decision.

Durrett said the information he initially had was that on Feb. 9, 2021, it came to the attention of school administrators boys had been exposing themselves to one another in the locker room.

Durrett said he later learned that families of the victims gave administrators full details of what had happened on Feb. 9, 2021. The first call to the hotline came Feb. 27, 2021. Durrett said hotline calls are confidential, even to prosecutors, so it isn't clear who made that initial call.

Durrett faced a backlash for not filing charges from child advocates, legislators and others who said it would have been the right move for the school officials to call and if there is a legal "loophole" that didn't make it a crime, it needs to be closed.

A mandated reporter is required to file a hotline report when they have reasonable cause to believe a child has been subjected to maltreatment.

A report from the Madison County sheriff's office by Capt. Russell Alberts concluded the incident didn't meet the criteria of child maltreatment as outlined in the law. A key sticking point was whether there was sexual gratification involved, and Alberts concluded there wasn't, according to the incident report.

According to a "Title IX Sexual Harassment Determination of Responsibility" report completed after the internal school district investigation, the accused players had placed their "genitals in the faces" of several eighth- and ninth-grade boys who were being restrained by other boys in the locker room after games. The practice -- called "baptism" -- occurred several times during the basketball season.

Two boys admitted to "baptizing" other players, according to the report. They were ultimately expelled from school for a semester.

Other boys were cited in the report as helping restrain the victims while they were being "baptized."

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