Former GCMS teacher extradited to Ford Co., denied pretrial release in sexual abuse case
Dinkins is charged with six counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, which stem from investigations by a special prosecutor and the GCMS School District. Those investigations found that Dinkins sent inappropriate messages to students, met alone with students at his house and was physically affectionate with students.
Decatur man sentenced to 45 years for drug deal-turned murder
Police began investigating Dinkins in early April, and he was placed on administrative leave a few days later. Later that month, Dinkins was fired after the investigative report was completed.
Finally, on June 4, the Ford County State's Attorney's Office filed the six counts and a warrant for Dinkins' arrest. But he wasn't in Ford County or even the State of Illinois. Dinkins was found a day later in Bibb County, Georgia, located southeast of Atlanta.
An arrest record WCIA obtained through a FOIA request said Dinkins was arrested at a hotel in Macon, Georgia. The deputy who made the arrest said he was dispatched to the hotel in reference to an individual who had made statements earlier in the day about suicide.
'Upon arrival, I made contact with Robert Dinkins. Robert stated he was fine and that he did not wish to harm himself,' the deputy said. 'After running Robert's name through dispatch, dispatch stated Robert had a warrant out of Ford County, Illinois, with full extradition.'
Dinkins was arrested and booked into the Bibb County Jail without incident. The arrest report also indicated that Dinkins was suspected of drinking alcohol when he was taken into custody.
Bibb County officials were unable to provide anything further because they said their own investigation into Dinkins and his arrest was ongoing.
Woman hit by car while walking dog in Mahomet Township, Sheriff says
Court records indicate that Dinkins was out of Ford County until Monday, when the arrest warrant against him was served. Once booked into the Ford County Jail, Dinkins appeared in court via Zoom.
During that hearing, the state was allowed to amend the petition for pretrial detention that it filed on June 4, over the objection of Ford County Public Defender Harvey Welch, to allege willful flight. Citing the fact that Dinkins had fled Illinois to evade prosecution, the state argued that no conditions of release could mitigate the threat Dinkins posed to the community.
While Welch was informed that a detention hearing could be delayed to allow for preparation to address the state's amendment, Welch did not move for continuance. A detention hearing was held and Dinkins was denied pretrial release.
A preliminary hearing and pretrial hearing were scheduled for July 9.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
16 minutes ago
- CNN
Prosecutors clear Florida deputy in arrest of a Black man punched and dragged from his car
Prosecutors will take 'no further action' against a Florida sheriff's deputy in the arrest of a Black college student pulled from his car and beaten by officers during a February traffic stop. The actions of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not constitute a crime, according to an investigative report released by the State Attorney's Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida. A video showing officers punching and dragging William McNeil from his car sparked nationwide outrage, though Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has said there's more to the story than the cell phone video that went viral online and that McNeil was repeatedly asked to exit his vehicle. In the investigative memo released Wednesday, prosecutors called the cell phone footage 'incomplete in scope' and said Bowers made a lawful traffic stop when he pulled McNeil over and that Bowers' use of force was justified. 'The State Attorney's Office has reviewed this matter to determine whether any of Officer Bowers' actions constitute a crime. We conclude they do not,' the report reads. According to the report, Bowers stopped McNeil for failing to turn on his headlights and buckle his seatbelt, after seeing his SUV parked outside a house the officer was surveilling for 'drug activity.' Based on a review of officer body camera footage, interviews the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office conducted with the officers involved and statements by McNeil, prosecutors said Bowers gave McNeil a dozen 'lawful commands,' which he disobeyed. After Bowers pulled him over, McNeil questioned the stop and declined to provide his license and registration. Though he earlier had his car door open while talking with an officer, he later closed it and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before the officers forcibly removed him, the video shows. 'It is the officers' body-worn camera footage that provides the additional needed context of the circumstances preceding, surrounding, and following McNeil's arrest,' the report reads. A statement from McNeil's lawyers, Ben Crump and Harry Daniels, called the report clearing the deputy 'little more than an attempt to justify the actions of Officer Bowers and his fellow officers after the fact.' Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence. 'Frankly, we expected nothing less especially after Sheriff Waters announced their conclusions more than three weeks before the report was issued,' the statement said. 'Since they are unwilling to seek justice, we will have to request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate this incident and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.' Previously, Crump has fiercely criticized prosecutors' finding that officers did not commit any criminal wrongdoing, saying his client remained calm while the officers who are trained to deescalate tense situations were the ones escalating violence. Crump said the case harkened back to the Civil Rights movement, when Black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
CNN
18 minutes ago
- CNN
Prosecutors clear Florida deputy in arrest of a Black man punched and dragged from his car
Race & ethnicityFacebookTweetLink Follow Prosecutors will take 'no further action' against a Florida sheriff's deputy in the arrest of a Black college student pulled from his car and beaten by officers during a February traffic stop. The actions of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not constitute a crime, according to an investigative report released by the State Attorney's Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida. A video showing officers punching and dragging William McNeil from his car sparked nationwide outrage, though Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has said there's more to the story than the cell phone video that went viral online and that McNeil was repeatedly asked to exit his vehicle. In the investigative memo released Wednesday, prosecutors called the cell phone footage 'incomplete in scope' and said Bowers made a lawful traffic stop when he pulled McNeil over and that Bowers' use of force was justified. 'The State Attorney's Office has reviewed this matter to determine whether any of Officer Bowers' actions constitute a crime. We conclude they do not,' the report reads. According to the report, Bowers stopped McNeil for failing to turn on his headlights and buckle his seatbelt, after seeing his SUV parked outside a house the officer was surveilling for 'drug activity.' Based on a review of officer body camera footage, interviews the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office conducted with the officers involved and statements by McNeil, prosecutors said Bowers gave McNeil a dozen 'lawful commands,' which he disobeyed. After Bowers pulled him over, McNeil questioned the stop and declined to provide his license and registration. Though he earlier had his car door open while talking with an officer, he later closed it and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before the officers forcibly removed him, the video shows. 'It is the officers' body-worn camera footage that provides the additional needed context of the circumstances preceding, surrounding, and following McNeil's arrest,' the report reads. A statement from McNeil's lawyers, Ben Crump and Harry Daniels, called the report clearing the deputy 'little more than an attempt to justify the actions of Officer Bowers and his fellow officers after the fact.' Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence. 'Frankly, we expected nothing less especially after Sheriff Waters announced their conclusions more than three weeks before the report was issued,' the statement said. 'Since they are unwilling to seek justice, we will have to request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate this incident and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.' Previously, Crump has fiercely criticized prosecutors' finding that officers did not commit any criminal wrongdoing, saying his client remained calm while the officers who are trained to deescalate tense situations were the ones escalating violence. Crump said the case harkened back to the Civil Rights movement, when Black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
CBS News
18 minutes ago
- CBS News
Man accused of faking his death, fleeing U.S. to evade rape charges convicted in Utah
Salt Lake City — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges was found guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials. A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial in which his accuser and her parents took the stand. The verdict came hours after Rossi, 38, declined to testify on his own behalf. He will be sentenced in the case on Oct. 20 and is set to stand trial in September for another rape charge in Utah County. First-degree felony rape carries a punishment in Utah of five years to life in prison, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. "We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place," Gill said in a statement Wednesday night. "We appreciate her patience as we worked to bring the defendant back to Salt Lake County so that this trial could take place and she could get justice. It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable." Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when the state made a push to clear its rape kit backlog. Months after he was charged in Utah County, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19 after hospital staff in Glasgow recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice. Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024 while insisting he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture. He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank. Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. She was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within about two weeks. On Monday, the woman described being asked to pay for their dates, cover Rossi's car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn't be evicted from his apartment and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. "I was a little bit more of a timid person back then, and so it was harder for me to stand up for myself," she said. The relationship spiraled quickly after their engagement, with Rossi "becoming controlling and saying mean things to me," she testified. The couple got into a fight in which Rossi allegedly pounded on her car and used his body to block her from pulling out of the parking garage. She finally let him inside and drove him home but said she had no plans of continuing a relationship. She agreed to go into his house to talk, but he instead pushed her onto his bed, held her down and "forced me to have sex with him," she testified. The woman described lying still, paralyzed with fear. The woman said dismissive comments from her parents convinced her not to go to the police at the time. She came forward a decade later after she saw him in the news and learned he was accused of another rape from the same year. Rossi's lawyers sought to convince the jury that his accuser built up years of resentment after he made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship. They argued she accused him of rape to get back at him years later when he was getting media attention. Attorneys for Rossi didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment after the verdict Wednesday night. Rossi's accuser in the Utah County case did, however, go to the police at the time. She took the stand Tuesday to testify about her own experiences with Rossi. Rossi is accused of attacking the second woman, another former girlfriend, at his apartment in Orem in September 2008 after she came over to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer. When police initially interviewed Rossi, he claimed she had raped him and threatened to have him killed. Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned there before allegedly faking his death. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.
