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Detective: Bus driver molested boys for years

Posted at 6:31 PM, Apr 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-13 19:18:29-04

FRANKLIN, Ohio — Federal and county law enforcement officials filed for an arrest warrant for a Franklin man they accused of sexually molesting two young boys over the course of a two-year period.

According to a complaint filed by FBI Task Force Officer and Hamilton County Sheriff’s Detective Donald Minnich in U.S. District Court, Jory Leedy, 46, engaged in sexual contact with two boys under the age of 10 on multiple occasions between 2013 and 2015.

Minnich filed the complaint in support of an arrest warrant for Leedy.

In the complaint, the detective details the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation, which began in December 2015. Investigators found Leedy first met the two brothers in the fall of 2012, one age 8, the other age 7.

Leedy met the boys while volunteering as a bus driver for Target Ministries in Dayton, Ohio, where he would give rides to and from church services to members of the area’s poorer neighborhoods, according to the complaint.

A short time after meeting them, the complaint continues, Leedy “showed an interest in the boys” and initiated a friendly relationship with their family. This included frequent visits for dinner, playing in the yard, and even becoming a part of the boys’ nighttime routine, when he would tuck them into bed, the complaint states.

In the months to come, Leedy began taking the boys to his church, Crossroads, based in Cincinnati, the complaint states. With the boys’ mother’s approval, Leedy eventually began staying in a nearby hotel room, “so they would be closer to Crossroads.” This continued roughly every-other Saturday evening from the summer of 2013 to the summer of 2015, according to the complaint.

Leedy also began taking the boys on trips out of state — including to North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New York and New Jersey, the complaint states.

On these trips, the complaint says, the boys testified that Leedy would take showers with the boys, sleep in between them in bed, “tickle” their genitalia, and — on at least one occasion — engage in sexual intercourse and oral sex.

By September 2015, the complaint concludes, Leedy and the boys’ father got into an argument because their father felt Leedy was “overstepping his bounds.” When that argument turned confrontational, Leedy called the police.

This was when officers informed the boys’ parents that Leedy was a registered sex offender, according to the complaint. Early on, the boys’ mother had done an Internet search for Leedy, who had falsely identified himself as “Jordan Leedy,” preventing the mother from discovering his registered sex offender status, according to the complaint.

According to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court documents, Leedy was found guilty in 2003 of gross sexual imposition after detectives accused him of inappropriate sexual contact with an 11-year-old. According to WCPO news partner WHIO, Leedy was a youth hockey coach in the Dayton area at the time.

The boys gave testimony at Michael’s House Advocacy Center in Fairborn, Ohio, shortly after the investigation began.

Jory Leeder was being held in the Butler County Jail without bond until a preliminary hearing April 22.

WCPO has reached out to Target Ministries in Dayton to see if they had done a background check on Leedy before hiring him, and is waiting to hear back.