Blue City Crime - Accused rapist found teaching math in Philadelphia school

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20080214_Accused_rapist_found_teaching_math_in_Philadelphia_school.html

Thu, Feb. 14, 2008

Accused rapist found teaching math in Philadelphia school

It just doesn't add up.

When Philadelphia police issued their much-ballyhooed list of the city's 150

most-wanted criminals last week, it turned out that one of them - accused of

raping a teenage girl - wasn't really that hard to find after all.

Arnesx Honore was exactly where he's been since late summer of 2003 -

teaching math to 8th-grade boys at a city alternative school in North

Philadelphia.

Honore is now re-arrested and free on bail, while officials with the police,

the district attorney's office and the school's operator, Community

Education Partners, or CEP, were scrambling last night to explain how the

33-year-old man accused of such a horrible crime against a young girl was

able to continue teaching all this time.

"As soon as we understood the gravity of the situation, we acted

immediately," insisted Kevin Feeley, the spokesman for CEP, who said that a

2007 background check showed charges had been dropped against the math

teacher at the Hunting Park school, and that its review of court papers

didn't reveal the age of the girl, now 17, who is the alleged victim.

Indeed, officials with CEP and law enforcement described what seemed to be a

series of miscommunications and bad timing that allowed Honore, a New York

native, to fall through the cracks of the criminal justice system here for

months.

In the meantime, a police report paints a horrific picture of Honore,

alleging he fathered a child with a 14-year-old girl the same summer he was

hired as a math teacher, and over the next three years physically abused and

raped the girl, ordering her to get two abortions.

The case caused Honore to join 149 other suspected felons - including 18

murder suspects - on a most-wanted list that was released in booklet form

and online by new Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey last week. The move was

intended to jump-start Mayor Nutter's anti-crime agenda, but the first catch

was a most unlikely one.

The phone lines began lighting up not long after Honore's name had been

placed on the list, including a call from a union official this weekend to

CEP, which has suspended Honore with intent to fire him. City detectives

arrested him on Monday. He is charged with rape, sexual abuse and other

offenses.

Honore apparently did not have a criminal record when he was hired by CEP in

2003 to teach math.

The Tennessee-based private company has had a contract with the Philadelphia

School District since 2000 to run three schools for kids with serious

disciplinary problems.

However, subsequent court papers allege that the same summer that he was

hired to teach, Honore began having what started as a consensual sexual

relationship with a 14-year-old - fathering a baby girl.

The police incident report states that the girl says Honore impregnated her

three other times. At least two resulted in abortions, and, according to the

report, the girl said after her second pregnancy that Honore said "if she

didn't have an abortion he was going to kick her ass and do it for her."

The girl also told police, according to the report, that "the subject

constantly beat her during their relationship causing severe injuries to her

face and body through each of her pregnancies." She told police that Honore

later forced her to have sex, including anally, and threatened to kill her

or their child on two occasions.

Honore was charged in the summer of 2006 with statutory rape and other

offenses, but the initial charges were dropped in June 2007 because,

according to authorities, a key witness in the case had failed to appear in

court.

However, Honore was re-charged in July 2007, and a warrant was issued at

that time but efforts to re-arrest him were unsuccessful.

Deputy Police Commissioner Patricia Fox said that often the last known

address on an arrest warrant is no longer valid.

"Everyone knew all along he was teaching, but if there was an invalid

address and it was the middle of the summer, maybe the D.A.'s office [should

have] waited until he got back to work at the school," she said. "It was

their warrant; however, in a perfect world, we would have known and

collaborated."

Meanwhile, Feeley said the company conducts annual background checks on all

of its teachers, including Honore, but that his last one in the summer of

2007 occurred about the time the first charges had been dropped.

"When we did the check, the refiled charges were not part of the record - to

suggest otherwise is unfair and inaccurate," Feeley said. "What we found was

that the charges had been dropped."

He said "we sought and received the actual court records" and that the case

was characterized as involving a domestic relationship.

Honore, who is free on $20,000 bail, refused to comment yesterday when

reached outside his home on North 27th Street, North Philadelphia.

Staff writer Valerie Russ contributed to this report.