Minister, Day Care Worker Charged with Sex Abuse Also Worked at Middle School in Lake Co.

WFTV
July 25, 2012

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/minister-day-care-worker-charged-sex-abuse-also-wo/nP3Hh/

[with video]

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — WFTV has learned that a man accused of sexually abusing children and disabled adults not only worked as a youth pastor and day care worker, but he also worked at a local middle school.

Kenneth Hagins is accused of abusing children and disabled adults while he worked at a Lake County day care and church, authorities said. But Channel 9's Berndt Petersen found that Hagins also worked at Mount Dora Middle School for eight years before he was fired.

District officials said Hagins worked at the school from May 1999 to Nov. 26, 2007. He had been a teacher's assistant, custodian and a secretary during his time at the school.

He was let go after administrators found pornography on his computer, officials said.

"It's our network acceptable use policy, and he violated it, downloading (pornography) onto his computer," said Chris Patton of Lake County Schools. "All that stuff is public record: His personnel file, his termination letter."

That means the owners of a Eustis day care and administrators of a Mount Dora group home for the mentally challenged, where Hagins is accused of sexual abuse, could have accessed those records.

Hagins was never charged for downloading the pornography, even though investigators said it was possible some of it was child porn.

"We could not prove that he was the one who actually downloaded those questionable images, because other people had access to his computer," authorities said.

Administrators of the group home insist Hagins passed a background check before he was hired.

Hagins is currently being held in to the Lake County Jail on $200,000 bond in the sexual abuse cases.