Eric C. Stearns, the choir teacher at St. Helens High School, was ordered by a Columbia County court on Monday to remain in custody without being granted bond until his detention hearing on a fresh 18-count indictment on Friday.
Erin Leigh Brady, the deputy district attorney, stated that she intends to submit a motion to request that Stearns be held in custody indefinitely without being released on bail pending trial.
Six more alleged victims are charged with sex abuse in the revised indictment, increasing the total to twelve.
Stearns was first charged with eight counts and taken into custody on November 12. Following the issuance of a new arrest warrant, he turned himself in to the jail on Saturday.
Stearns’ original public defense attorney, Jennifer L. Myrick, was permitted to defend him in court after Circuit Judge Nickolas Brajcich overruled another judge’s decision on Friday to deny him a court-appointed attorney.
Myrick tried in vain to have the court maintain Stearns’ bond of $150,000, which had been established upon his initial indictment.
According to her, Stearns has a close relationship with the neighborhood and a nearby church and has cooperated with the terms of his previous release. She claimed that the government had not shown any justification for the non-bail stay.
Stearns sat at a desk with his hands clasped in front of him occasionally while wearing the gray-and-white jumpsuit from the county jail over a bright orange T-shirt. According to the jail camera feed, he bounced his legs up and down during the brief session, at other points resting his hands on his knees.
Brady referenced a state statute that requires a judge to decide on a person’s release at the time of arraignment or another initial appearance unless there is compelling evidence to delay the decision. She maintained that Stearns should be held without bail for the time being because her office intends to request preventative detention, with more proof to be presented at a hearing in five days.
Brajcich concurred and directed that Stearns be detained until Friday at 1:30 p.m. for that hearing.
The latest indictment, which was submitted to the court on Friday afternoon, claims that 12 separate individuals were sexually abused beginning in January 2015 and, in certain circumstances, continuing into the beginning of this school year. In the middle of November, Stearns was put on leave.
According to the indictment, he was accused of groping students’ lips, necks, buttocks, and chests.
Four counts of third-degree sexual abuse, thirteen cases of second-degree abuse, and one count of first-degree sexual abuse are currently against him.
Four of the six new claimed victims were his students at the time, two of whom are still underage.
According to Brady’s letter to the court, the other two were adults at the time who were connected to the defendant through his positions at St. Helens High School. They didn’t report the defendant until they found out about his recent arrest because they each feared that his reputation and widespread presence in the community would make it impossible for these victims to be heard. When Stearns is accused of caressing one of the adults’ lips on November 1, 2022, the indictment states that the adult was physically incapacitated and hence unable to give consent.
In court, Myrick stated that the charge was brought about by Stearns touching the lips of an inebriated person.
According to the indictment, he is charged with touching the other adult’s genitalia on July 29, 2021, without her consent.
According to Myrick, the choir teacher’s massaging of the lymph nodes of children who complained of sore throats was the cause of some of the other accusations, which may not have been made with explicit sexual intent.
She stated that she plans to submit a court challenge, arguing that the government’s prosecution went too far and contesting the validity of one of the sex abuse counts.
A grand jury’s ability to act as a check on claims is obviously hampered by the media coverage and attention this case has received, she said.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Stearns informed the judge that the jail had limited his calls to his lawyer’s mobile number and that he had been unable to reach her after hours on her business line.
Brajcich instructed the sheriff’s office to make arrangements so Stearns can get in touch with his counsel. He also threatened to speak with the judge if they failed to grant him his constitutional right to speak with his lawyer.
Detectives are still looking for information on Stearns, including past and present connections, according to a statement released by St. Helens police on Saturday. Investigators are worried that there might be more victims.
Stearns and a former high school math instructor were both arrested on the same day. Students protested and staged a walkout at the high school as a result of the arrests. Since then, the superintendent of the school system has been placed on paid administrative leave, and the high school principal has been arrested on charges of neglecting to disclose abuse reports.
As the Oregon Teachers Standards and Practices Commission, the state Department of Human Services, and the school district conducted their administrative and criminal investigations, they recruited an interim superintendent and a new acting high school principal.
— Maxine Bernstein writes about criminal justice and federal courts. You may contact her at [email protected], 503-221-8212, or follow her on LinkedIn or X@maxoregonian.
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