Judge says former Olathe teacher accused of stalking student, 10, must stand trial
A former fourth-grade teacher who admitted to having a sexual attraction to a 10-year-old student and photographing her surreptitiously must stand trial on a reckless stalking charge, a Johnson County judge ruled Thursday.
The attorney representing James D. Loganbill of Lenexa had argued that his client’s actions did not constitute a crime. For him to be guilty of reckless stalking under Kansas law, lawyer Carl Cornwell said in his motion to dismiss the charge, the girl would need to have been fearful at the time, knowing that Loganbill was taking pictures of her from behind while in class and on the playground.
But she did not know that was going on last school year, when she was in Loganbill’s class at Meadow Lane Elementary school in the Olathe School District, Cornwell said. She only became fearful after learning about his behavior from classmates who had noticed Loganbill furtively shooting photos of the girl with his phone and iPad.
According to court documents, Loganbill told police that he found the girl “sexually attractive and would not have taken the pictures otherwise.”
Judge Thomas M. Sutherland denied Cornwell’s motion, two days after hearing arguments from him and assistant district attorney Sara Walton. She maintained that Cornwell’s interpretation of the law was too narrow and that a jury should decide whether Loganbill’s actions amounted to a crime.
Sutherland agreed with the prosecutor in a five-page ruling. He wrote that the state’s reckless stalking statute “does not require the actual fear be experienced contemporaneously” with a defendant’s actions.
“The undisputed facts are that once the victim learned of the true nature and extent of the defendant’s actions, she was scared (experienced actual fear),” Sutherland said. The statute does not require the victim to be scared at the exact time of defendant’s action.”
To clear up any future confusion on that point, District Attorney Steve Howe, working with the girl’s parents, is proposing changes in wording of the statute when the next session of Kansas Legislature begins in January.
Loganbill resigned in March after 31 years with the district upon being confronted with the allegations that are the foundation for the misdemeanor reckless stalking charge filed in June. He faces up to a year in jail, if convicted.
The girl’s parents are preparing to file a lawsuit against the school district next month after a waiting period has expired. It will allege, they say, that the district was aware of previous complaints against Loganbill for questionable behavior involving young girls, yet continued to employ him and put other children in danger. He is not accused of touching the girls inappropriately.
The Star was first to report last month that a group of seventh grade cheerleaders lodged a complaint against Loganbill while he was their social studies teacher at Olathe’s Pioneer Trail Middle School in 2011. They said he showed undue interest toward certain girls that made them uncomfortable.
Women now in their 30s also told the newspaper that they were concerned about him while he was teaching fifth and sixth grade at Countryside Elementary School, also in Olathe, during the 1990s.
The district has declined comment, citing pending litigation.
