The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Christopher Keys, a student pastor at Wesleyan Drive Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia and a former teacher at Tattnall Square Academy, stands accused of faking his kidnapping to cover-up hiring a male prostitute.
A Georgia Christian school teacher has been charged for solicitation of sodomy after local authorities looked into a robbery and kidnapping that was spawned from a rumor ‘circulating around Facebook.’
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office arrested 56-year-old Christopher Keys and are investigating the robbery that he initially reported on May 19.
They shared in a Thursday press release that the office had received an inquiry about a rumored ‘carjacking and kidnapping’ that took place on Wednesday at the CVS Pharmacy on 1600 block of Forest Hill Drive.
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According to an incident report, deputies met with Keys at the Regency Inn & Suites for calls about an armed robbery.
Keys claimed that he had been in the motel when he heard a knock at his door. Once he opened the door, two masked men robbed him of his wallet, house, truck and work keys, and a cell phone. One of the men was armed, Keys told deputies.
He told authorities that he was able to get his cell phone back only after a stranger retrieved it from a nearby Walmart parking lot.
Keys explained to deputies that he was supposed to meet a man in his hotel room, having responded to an ad on Craigslist.
An investigation revealed that Keys had been frequently visiting the hotel since January.
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Key subsequently told an acquaintance that he had been kidnapped in his truck at a nearby CVS, forced to drive to the motel, and robbed. After a woman posted Keys’ story about the kidnapping and robbery on Facebook (above), it was shared hundreds of times, prompting WMAZ-TV to look into the rumor.
As it turns out, Keys met with police at the hotel after the robbery, telling a sheriff’s deputy that “he liked to play around and was married to a woman,” the station reports. In an interview with the deputy, Keys even revealed his plan to tell his family that he was kidnapped at the CVS. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with solicitation of sodomy, a misdemeanor. (Although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003, Georgia’s solicitation of sodomy statute has been upheld.)
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Keys recently worked as a teacher at Tattnall Square Academy, where he taught upper-school Bible, worked with the chapel band, and served as coordinator for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, according to his now-deleted bio (above).
“I am a people person and love to teach young people the truths of the Bible,” he wrote in the bio.
“I have been married for 20 years to my wife Jennie. I am a graduate of FPD and Mercer University and Southwestern Seminary. I am currently the student pastor at Wesleyan Drive Baptist Church in Macon and I’ve been in student ministry for 28 years.”
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Keys also once worked as a bailiff for the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested him. Sheriff’s investigators are still searching for the robbery suspects, who made off with Keys’ wallet, cell phone, and keys — although his phone reportedly was recovered in the parking lot of a nearby Walmart.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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