The Mountain Eagle
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Ex-teacher faces a new charge in federal court


Arraignment is set for later this week in U.S. District Court in Pikeville for a former teacher accused of producing child pornography.

Charles Evans Hall Jr. was indicted by a federal grand jury in October on the child pornography charge, but a grand jury issued a superseding indictment Friday charging him with producing child pornography and using Instagram, Facebook and the Internet to harass and intimidate the victim in the case. The charges involve a girl, then 14 years old.

Hall, who is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday, was already facing state charges of unlawful use of an electronic device to engage in sexual or prohibited activities, tampering with a witness, tampering with physical evidence, third-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse, third-degree sodomy, possession or viewing of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor, use of a minor in a sexual performance, first-degree sexual abuse and third-degree sodomy.

Hall was a teacher at Letcher County Alternative School and a former assistant football coach at Letcher County Central High School when he was arrested in early December 2018. He had been a teacher at Letcher Middle School when he was suspended the previous spring pending an investigation, but he was reinstated as a teacher at the alternative school after a Kentucky State Police Post 13 investigation of that incident lapsed. Both police and the school district said at the time that the allegations were unsubstantiated.

The new indictment accuses Hall of committing the sex acts during a period from January 2018 to November 20, 2018, when he “did employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct,” knowing that it would then be sent though interstate and foreign commerce.

The indictment says Hall communicated with the girl from November 2018 through February 2020 with intent to “injure, harass, and intimidate” her, and to “engage in a course of conduct that caused, attempted to cause, and would be reasonably expected to cause, substantial emotional distress to Victim 1.”

A jury trial is currently set for May 27 in U.S. District Court in Pikeville, however that may be postponed in light of the new indictment.

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