OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch
By Kathy Lynn Gray
The Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday August 14, 2013
Columbus police are investigating why the suspended director of the Ohio State Fair youth choir did not report allegations of a former staff member’s inappropriate interactions with choir members in 2011, a detective said yesterday.
Detective Amy Welsh said Charles R. Snyder learned of the sexual allegations against Zachary R. Ruppel that same year but did not tell police.
Snyder did report a different set of allegations against Ruppel this year, according to fair officials. After that happened, Snyder, the fair choir director since 1992, was suspended by fair manager Virgil Strickler.
Snyder, of Coshocton, did not work at this year’s fair.
Ruppel worked with the fair choir in 2011 but was not asked to return. He was choir director at St. Francis DeSales High School in Columbus from 2010 until the end of the school year in June.
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