Three Osceola County School District employees have been arrested in the past two weeks on sex crimes.
The latest was Bradley Scott Linville, a dean at Harmony Middle School in St. Cloud, who was arrested Wednesday on three counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a 13-year-old student.
Deputies from the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrested Linville after the student told his grandmother Monday that Linville had inappropriately touched him in his office, according to an arrest report.
“On three occasions, the suspect took advantage of this child and touched him in his groin area,” Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez said at a press conference Thursday afternoon as a video of Linville’s perp walk played on a screen next to him.
If convicted, Linville could face a maximum 45-year-sentence for the second-degree felony molestation charges.
The 51-year-old dean, who has worked for the district since 1995, “was cooperative but not talkative about anything involving his case,” Lopez said.
Linville worked at Michigan Avenue Elementary School, Discovery Middle School, Gateway High School, Tohopekaliga High School, along with Harmony Middle School.
Before getting hired by the school district, Linville worked in law enforcement in Okeechobee County, Lopez said.
The sheriff said Linville committed sex crimes against the boy in his office and in a book closet at the school.
“We want to make sure that if you have been a victim of this individual posted here, please, you know, we need you to come forward,” Lopez said.
“It’s really important that if anybody has any information or felt that they were inappropriately touched by this man at one time, you need to come forward so we can have some closure and make sure that all these victims are getting the justice they deserve,” he said.
Linville has been suspended and his contract will not be renewed, according to the school district.
On May 12, substitute teacher Joshua Merced-Trychta, 19, was charged with receiving and distributing child pornography through KiK, an instant messaging app. He’s now on house arrest in Kissimmee and was fired by the school district.
On May 20, Phillip Knepper, a 59-year-old IT worker at the district, was charged with raping a child relative. He is still in the Osceola County jail on a $5,000 bond and was ordered to have no contact with the victim or any minors. Knepper is also forbidden from returning to the address.
“There’s just things that aren’t within our scope of control,” López said. “You can screen them as well as you want, but you’ve got a guy who’s been in the school system since ‘95. He could’ve just laid under the radar and no one’s come out and talked about this.”
