Teacher pleads guilty to molesting young house guests.

Date published: 10/15/2008

BY KEITH EPPS

A popular Manassas teacher admitted yesterday that he molested three young girls at his Stafford County home.

Ted Thomas Johnson, 48, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery and two counts of attempted custodial indecent liberties with a child. Three other charges were dropped.

Johnson, a longtime band director at Osbourn High School and a teacher at a middle school, will be sentenced in Stafford Circuit Court on Dec. 15.

All three girls were either 12 or 13. None were students of his.

According to prosecutor Michael Hardiman, the case against Johnson began in February when a 13-year-old girl accused him of improperly touching her while she was spending the night at his home.

Johnson is married and has four teenage children.

According to Hardiman, the girl said she woke up at 6 a.m. Feb. 18 to find Johnson’s hand on her buttocks.

The girl immediately told Johnson’s daughter what had happened and told his wife that she wanted to go home.

The girl was taken home, and her parents called the Sheriff’s Office.

After Johnson was arrested, two other girls came forward and said they were similarly molested.

One girl said she was molested twice in June and July of last year. She told her parents, but those incidents were not reported to the police until after the arrest.

The third girl said her incident occurred in September. She woke up to find Johnson tugging on her underwear.

Hardiman said Johnson had ordered his daughter to go to her own bed prior to the attack.

Johnson had been free on bond, but went to jail after Judge J. Martin Bass rejected defense attorney Joseph Brown’s request to allow him to remain free on bond pending sentencing.

Hardiman said Johnson had a misdemeanor sexual assault conviction in Michigan in 1982. He had been suspended from his teaching duties pending the outcome of this case.

Keith Epps: 540/374-5404 kepps@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 10/15/2008