The bond of $3 million for a former Michigan youth pastor and music director charged with over 30 counts of sexually abusing children was rejected after prosecutors informed the judge that he had contacted one of his victims eight times following the accusations made last year.
During one of the phone calls, Zachary Joseph Radcliff instructed the boy to stay silent, as shared by Assistant Washtenaw County Prosecutor Amy Reiser during the court session held on Thursday and reported by MLive.com.
Thursday’s hearing came about because Radcliff’s attorney, James A. Thomas, was seeking to have his $3 million bond reduced to $10,000.
“A $3 million bond is practically the same as no bond,” Thomas conveyed to Washtenaw County District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson. “Even if it were $1 million, it would still be practically the same as no bond.”
Reiser also told Simpson how Radcliff fled to Virginia after the allegations surfaced but before he was charged, to the campus of his alma mater, Liberty University. But it was the phone calls to the victim that caused Simpson to revoke Radcliff’s bond entirely.
“This is how he’s acting when he’s not been charged, when he’s not been arrested and not been arraigned,” Reiser said. “He is intimidating and threatening the victims.”
Simpson called the flight to Virginia and the phone calls “very troublesome.”
“I’m looking at the behavior of the defendant because that’s what I have to bank on if he were to be released,” he said.
Radcliff was the music director and youth pastor at Oakwood Baptist Church in Augusta Township when he was charged. He faces 33 felonies — nin counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct and eight counts each of aggravated child sexually abusive activity, child sexually abusive activity, and using a computer to commit a crime.
Michigan State Police said they began an investigation of Radcliff, the son of the senior pastor of Oakwood Church, after receiving reports that he solicited porn from a minor, as CrimeOnline reported. The arrest was made after search warrants were served on Radcliff’s home and office, The church said it suspended Radcliff with pay on October 3 and then fired him 10 days later.
He was arraigned on 11 charges in October and another 22 a month later, MLive.com said. Eleven victims have been identified — 10 boys and a girl — and one of the victims was younger than 13 at the time the alleged abuse took place.
Reiser provided some of the testimony on Thursday she said would likely be heard when the case goes to trial. She said Radcliff contacted a 14-year-old boy via Snapchat in 2015, asking him for oral sex, then drove to his house in the middle of the night and picked the boy up and raped him. Radcliff reportedly called the incident their “cute little secret,” the prosecutor said.
Reiser also said that Radcliff paid some of the children with gifts, money, or trips to restaurants in exchange for videos and photos of them masterbating. Eight of the children complied, police said.
Radcliff’s next court date is February 24.
