PDF: Affidavit of complaint
A year after a state-approved foster care provider trained Richard Batson to supervise troubled children, Chattanooga police charged him with raping his 16-year-old foster daughter several times over four months.
Police also charged a woman who confessed to having three-way sex with the girl.
Tennessee Department of Children's Services officials learned of suspicious activity Tuesday. A friend of the suspect released text messages in which Batson, 41, bragged about having sex with the girl a "Couple times a week. lol," according to police records.
He continued, "I feel bad but no regrets because it was consensual," records show.
Another text message from Batson's phone states, "That's right I'm the man. If we find a sexy chick willin [sic] we gonna have a threesome."
Based on the messages, police on Tuesday instructed the friend to call Batson for more details while they recorded the conversation. Batson answered the call, confirmed he sent the text messages and talked about using a condom with the foster daughter.
When the friend said, "I know you hate that," Batson replied: "Certain situations require it," according to police.
The next day, police interviewed the 16-year-old victim, who is not named here in accordance with Chattanooga Times Free Press policy. She told police Batson had sex with her about six times since state authorities placed her in the home in July, and she discussed another female's involvement.
Investigators moved on to Julie Yoder, 39, after the victim said a woman named "Julie" performed sex acts on her during an encounter orchestrated by Batson, who described the threesome as "awesome" in another text his friend gave police.
On Wednesday, police arrested Batson and charged him with statutory rape by an authority figure. He remained in jail Friday on a $75,000 bond, county officials said.
Police also arrested Yoder for aggravated statutory rape, but she made a $25,000 bond Thursday morning and was released, jail officials said.
Efforts to reach Yoder were unsuccessful Friday.
Until recently, Batson worked as a registration clerk at T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital at Erlanger. Hospital spokeswoman Pat Charles said he lost his job several days ago, but not because of the statutory rape charges.
Officials at the Tennessee Department of Children's Services said Batson was hired in 2009 by Omni Visions, a private provider contracted by the state to supervise troubled children. He was "cleared" in 2010 to continue giving foster care, according to Children's Services spokesman Rob Johnson.
Last July, Batson and his former wife took care of the victim and her two brothers after Omni Visions trained him to supervise "Level 2" children who have "behavioral disorders, not extreme psychiatric conditions," Johnson said.
But Omni Visions program director Kathy Joyner said some Level 2 children "do have mental health diagnoses."
Neither official would discuss the 16-year-old girl's situation in detail, but Joyner said Omni Visions conducted "sexual predator checks" and convened periodic team meetings with the victim present "to talk about anything she wanted."
"Red flags" never came up even when Batson divorced earlier this year, though Joyner said state authorities "weighed the pros and cons" of moving the girl.
"There's hundreds of kids in foster care and there's going to be some mistakes," Omni Visions President Jim Henry said. "We've got to make sure we didn't miss something."
Contact staff writer Chris Carroll at ccarroll@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6610.