Former Maryland teacher accused of raping 12-year-old girl released on house arrest, accused of inappropriate behavior with different students

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore County judge on Monday released a former Baltimore teacher accused of second-degree rape of his 12-year-old neighbor from house arrest.

Lewis M. Laury Jr., 24, taught U.S. History at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School until his arrest in July after authorities found a 12-year-old girl missing from her Pikesville home. A grand jury indicted him on 24 counts, including 12 counts of second-degree rape and other sex crime charges.

Assistant State’s Attorney Jessica Borits said at Monday’s bail review hearing that a different girl, a 16-year-old Mervo student, had previously complained that Laury had acted inappropriately towards her.

This teenager, whom Borits identified as one of Laury’s U.S. history students, reported that Laury discussed sex with him and then dropped him off at home, where he asked her if she liked “bigger men” and about her “quirks.” Borits said Laury asked her if she wanted to have sex with him, and she said no.

“The defendant is a predator,” Borits said. He said no charges have been brought regarding this allegation.

Laury’s attorney, Jerome Bivens, said the school principal and school resource officer investigated the student’s allegation and took no action.

Baltimore City Public Schools spokeswoman Sherry Christian could not immediately respond to questions about the student’s complaint Monday afternoon.

The U.S. Marshals Service discovered that the missing girl, who left a note to her parents saying she was visiting a friend in Pennsylvania in June, used a friend’s phone to call Laury, allowing authorities to track her to her home, Borits said. He wasn’t home when they found him.

Borits said the girl reported sexual activity to a Greater Baltimore Medical Center nurse while she was at the hospital for a sexual assault forensic examination. He was 12 at the time, which meant the act was charged as second-degree rape. Under Maryland law, it is a felony for an individual to have sex with someone under the age of 14 if the victim is four years or older.

DNA results and cell phone data records are still pending.

Borits said Laury told detectives that the girl was sleeping in her bed while he was sleeping in the living room and that her memory may have been impaired by alcohol and marijuana. Borits said Laury also gave investigators a written contract listing the girl’s “expectations and needs” and a sheet of paper in which he attempted to verify the girl’s age.

Laury’s attorney, Jerome Bivens, said his client did not rape the girl and claimed he did not tell detectives during the girl’s “elopement.”

“There was no sex,” Bivens said. He told Circuit Court Judge Robert E. Cahill Jr. that the girl knocked on her client’s door, was carrying luggage and $200 and told him she was running away from her abusive boyfriend. Bivens said Laury told him he could stay temporarily.

Cahill granted Biven’s request for Laury to be released from the Baltimore County Detention Center under home supervision, saying that although the facts of the case were “extremely serious, extremely concerning,” the law required her to oppose the least onerous conditions of pretrial detention, while On the other hand, he added that it required him to oppose at least severe sentencing conditions. safety of the public and victims.

He also expressed concern that the case could drag on indefinitely as prosecutors await the release of DNA and cellphone records from backup labs and the FBI. Cahill ordered Laury to stay home at all times without going to work or school and not to have contact with the girl or her family members.

“I have to reiterate, I am following the law here,” the judge said. A hearing date has not yet been set for the case.

Before asking for his client’s release, Bivens asked the six people who lined up in the courtroom to stand to show Laury’s strong community ties. He introduced Laury’s parents and Nicholas McDaniels, the attorney who mentored Laury.

Laury was doing business with McDaniels’ law firm in Frederick when police found the girl, Bivens said.

Laury attended Mervo as a student and subsequently graduated from Towson University; Bivens said that he gave his graduation address here and prepared the dean’s list every semester. He was previously a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

Laury attended law school for a year, “took a break from her law studies to start a family” and worked in Baltimore City Schools for two years, Bivens said.

“Teachers are heroes,” Bivens told Cahill. “Look at me, your honor, I’m a black man, I was born in Baltimore, and so is he.”

In July, a law school spokesman said Laury had not been enrolled “in some time.” A spokesman did not respond to a question Monday about the circumstances of his departure.

Court records show that in 2021, Laury married a woman who later claimed in her divorce filing that he forced her into the marriage and committed adultery. A judge granted the couple a divorce in July 2023 after being separated for more than a year.

Laury’s former brother-in-law and mother-in-law claimed he attacked them after breaking into their Montgomery County home in December 2021. A judge issued final protective orders in both cases, which are not criminal cases and require a lower bar for evidence.

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