OHIO
Columbus Dispatch
By Kathy Lynn Gray and Allison Manning
Tuesday July 23, 2013
Investigators are combing through a cache of nude photos that police suspect were solicited by a former youth choir director who is facing child-sex charges.
Already, Zachary R. Ruppel, 26, a former St. Francis DeSales High School choir director and former Ohio State Fair choir staff member, is charged with soliciting nude pictures and sex acts from two boys in exchange for membership in the state fair choir.
But Sgt. Terry McConnell, of the Columbus police sexual-assault unit, said there are many more victims.
Investigators are trying to identify the boys in photos found on Ruppel’s cellphone and iPad, using school yearbooks and, when possible, school staff members to review cropped photos. Some victims, officials say, were DeSales students; some were choir members.
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