ST. GEORGE, Utah, Feb. 6, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — St. George Police began an investigation in December 2017 into allegations of inappropriate conduct involving a Washington County School District employee.
As a result of that investigation, Curtis Payne was arrested for three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, police stated in a Jan. 30 Facebook post. The investigation was ongoing.
On Tuesday, St. George Police announced that detectives have placed Payne under arrest for 12 additional counts of the same offense.
“The new charges are based upon information obtained through follow-up investigations which have identified several additional victims. The incidents span the length of Mr. Payne’s career and those interviewed now range in ages from 14 to 30 years old,” according to a Facebook news release Tuesday.
So far, detectives have interviewed 32 individuals in the course of their investigation, which is still active.
“Many of the interviews resulted in disclosures that described similar patterns of conduct which involved touching and other behavior by Mr. Payne; however, many of the incidents had not progressed to the point where criminal violations occurred,” the news release said.
“Other disclosures did provide sufficient evidence that crimes were committed and charges have been filed as a result.”
Anyone who has additional information regarding this case is asked to call the investigations Tip Line at 435-627-4338.
Payne, 59, has been employed by Washington County School District for 32 years.
Gephardt Daily will update this story as more information is released.
