Published: Wednesday, October 30, 2013
A former longtime teacher at Episcopal Academy is facing a sexual abuse of children offense after child pornography was found on his home computer, according to a complaint filed Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police.
Richard Perkins Smith, 65, of Middletown, is currently behind bars at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts. He is awaiting trial on rape of a child, indecent assault and battery and related offenses involving the alleged assaults of four children at a Cape Cod summer camp 30 years ago. He was arrested on those offenses in April, and has pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
The recent charges stem from alleged admissions Smith made to authorities in September 2012.
At that time, Pennsylvania troopers were assisting two Massachusetts State Police troopers in town to investigate allegations that Smith sexually assaulted four boys, ages 11 to 15, at Camp Good News in 1981, when Smith was a counselor.
Massachusetts authorities launched an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the religious summer camp in Sandwich, Mass., after former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown revealed in his autobiography released in 2011 that he was sexually assaulted at a camp on Cape Cod when he was 10.
Smith was interviewed by the Massachusetts troopers at his Middletown Penn. residence on Sept. 27, 2012 and at the PSP Media barracks on Sept. 28, 2012, according to the latest affidavit of probable cause for arrest, written by Trooper John O’Donnell of the PSP Criminal Investigation Section.
Back in 2012, Smith allegedly admitted to having pornography on his computer and deleting the images, according to documents. He initially described it as gay pornography and not child pornography, though later said there may be images of children in emails. As a result of Smith’s alleged statements, Pennsylvania troopers obtained a search warrant and seized two computers, a thumb drive and 23 CDs.
