Tonya Craft speaks to the media in her parents’ East Ridge home after a jury found her innocent on 22 counts of child molestation, aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery.RINGGOLD, Ga. – A Chattanooga man who claims he was falsely accused of child molestation in the same judicial circuit that unsuccessfully prosecuted Tonya Craft on similar charges pleaded guilty Tuesday to nonsexual charges.
James Combs, 64, was accused of touching three fifth-grade boys inappropriately when he was a substitute teacher at Boynton Elementary School in Ringgold, Ga., in February 2010.
Staff photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free Press – Tonya Craft’s defense attorneys Clancy Covert, left, and Scott King prepare to file a motion for child custody at the Hamilton County Courthouse on Wednesday morning.After the four counts of child molestation were lodged against Combs in Catoosa County, he contacted Scott King, the attorney for Craft.
Craft is the former Chickamauga, Ga., schoolteacher who gained national attention after she was accused of molesting three girls, one being her own daughter. She was acquitted of 22 charges of child molestation, aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery in 2010.
Combs said he planned to fight the charges, but he was convinced to take a plea deal on nonsexual charges to avoid the risk of losing a trial. His maximum sentence for the child molestation charges would have been 40 years in prison.