Man charged with sex abuse after Star-Telegram series on IFB churches brings new tips
A Michigan man who was accused of sexually abusing a student at the independent fundamental Baptist school where he worked has been charged with eight counts of criminal sexual conduct in the abuse of a teenager in 2006 and 2007, according to Michigan State Police.
The accuser, Brianna Kenyon, spoke with the Star-Telegram in 2018 for a series of stories regarding sexual abuse and cover-ups by men working at independent fundamental Baptist churches or schools across the country.
Kenyon said she reported David Beckner to police years ago, but the Star-Telegram’s investigation brought forth new evidence and a police investigation in the case against the 51-year-old. Beckner was a teacher at Gaylord Grace Baptist Christian School when the reported abuse began.
Police said in a news release that, “detectives learned that the case had been previously investigated by the Michigan State Police in 2013, but the former Otsego County Prosecutor had declined to issue any charges. Based on the previously gained information and the continued investigation, detectives again presented the case to the Otsego County Prosecutor’s Office.”
The complaint was filed by police on June 13, according to police.
Kenyon, one of 10 people who submitted a video to the Star-Telegram for the series discussing their experience in the church, said Beckner positioned himself as a father figure and eventually sexually abused her in 2006, when she was 16.
Beckner, she said, controlled her and made her feel bad for thinking there was anything wrong with their relationship. When she was 17, she said, he had sex with her for the first time. He was still her teacher at that point.
“Once he had sex with me, he said no one will ever marry me, no one will ever love you,” she said. “I felt ruined. I was in a captured situation where I felt like, now I’m yours, whatever you want.”
Kenyon followed Beckner and his wife to West Virginia at his request a month after she turned 18. It was her senior year, and she told her mother that she would be getting a GED.
“He would practice with me things to say to my parents if they got suspicious, things to say to my siblings and my friends,” she said. “He controlled everything I did, for years, and I was trapped in a hell that I couldn’t get out of.”
Several months later, Kenyon said, Beckner’s wife found out. But Beckner kept calling Kenyon until she took out a restraining order against him in 2011.
Beckner turned himself in to police in West Virginia on Thursday.
He’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing on July 11 in Michigan. If convicted, Beckner faces up to 15 years in prison with mandatory AIDS/STD testing.
This story was originally published July 1, 2019 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Man charged with sex abuse after Star-Telegram series on IFB churches brings new tips."