Convicted child molester gets probation
By Joe Johnson
A man who had been convicted of molesting children while a police officer in Athens has received probation.
Kristin Matthew Ward had that conviction overturned on appeal and instead of being retried he was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree cruelty to children, with a sentence of 10 years on probation.
The plea deal also allowed him to avoid being on the state sex offender registry.
Ward was a senior police officer in the Athens-Clarke County Police Department when arrested in 2015 for allegedly sexually molesting boys who were under his supervision as cadets with the local unit of the Civil Air Patrol at Athens-Ben Epps Airport.
He reportedly spent a lot of time with the victim and the boy’s twin brother, playing video games at his apartment and having them for sleepovers,
Court records show that Ward frequently took the boys out to dinner, gave them gifts and even brought them on trips to Savannah and San Francisco.
The alleged molestations occurred while the three of them watched television in the officer’s darkened home.
The victim eventually told his parents what had been going on, and he subsequently underwent psychological counseling and the incidents were reported to the police.
After a trial in March 2018, a jury found Ward guilty of
molesting the 13-year-old cadet, enticing him for indecent purposes and three counts of violating his oath as a police officer, but acquitted him of the more serious charge of aggravated sexual battery.
Superior Court Judge Regina Quick imposed a 55-year sentence, ordering Ward to serve the first 44 years in prison and the balance on probation.
The conviction was appealed, and the following year the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the violation of oath of office charges and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings on the remaining charges due to evidentiary issues.
His attorney had successfully argued that Ward’s constitutional rights were violated because during his trial, prosecutors improperly used immunized statements that Ward made to superiors during an internal affairs investigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such statements are inadmissible as evidence because they were made under coercion by officers’ superiors.
Ward was released from prison in 2021 after serving only three years.
Ward’s case had not been prosecuted by the local district attorney’s office because such cases are handled by prosecutors from outside the judicial circuit to avoid conflicts of interest.
The case was initially prosecuted by the Piedmont Circuit district attorney and the post-appeal proceedings were handled by the Alcovy Circuit.
A new trial never happened because last week prosecutors filed an accusation in Superior Court for the lone child cruelty charge.and the plea bargain was struck
The only special condition of probation is that Ward can never have contact with the victim.
The plea deal also allows Ward to get off of probation after just four years if he remains compliant with its terms.
While his retrial was pending Ward announced his candidacy for the Athens-Clarke County commission but he ended his campaign a day after Classic City News published a story about his criminal history.
