A former Macomb County teacher and pilot has been hit with a two-year federal prison sentence after admitting to indecently touching a 15-year-old girl during flight lessons. Rex Phelps, aged 72, of Harrison Township, pled guilty to a charge of abusive sexual contact with a child and was also slapped with five years of supervised release, according to court records released by officials.
The dirty details of Phelps's actions came to light when he mistakenly texted an inappropriate image and comment to the wrong person, who then alerted the police, a misstep that led authorities to uncover his abusive behavior. The FBI was heavily involved in the subsequent investigation, with Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson condemning Phelps's conduct saying, "Teachers and instructors are supposed to protect our youth while they progress in their learning environments, and it is utterly shameful that this individual took advantage of this young girl," according to a statement obtained by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison emphasized the gravity of the sentence, asserting, “This sentence reaffirms our office’s commitment to protecting the most innocent and vulnerable members of our community – children," as reported by the Detroit Free Press. Phelps’s abuse, which included not just touching but also alarming text exchanges, left the trust of the victim's parents, deeply shattered.
Despite his attorney, Samuel Bennett, playing the remorse card and pointing to a clean history over a long teaching career, the prosecution remained adamant and secured the two-year sentence, the maximum for the offense, along with no contact with the minor victim or the aviation community. In a pitiful attempt to soften the blow, Bennett asked for a mere day behind bars but the court instead delivered a hefty dose of justice, painting a stark contrast to Phelps's past as an upstanding member of the educational fold and a figure in the Experimental Aircraft Association. “He is forever ashamed of his actions and how they have impacted the people around him," Bennett stated in a release acquired by the Detroit Free Press.
Phelps is not free of the legal tangles yet, as he still faces charges in Macomb County Circuit Court including children-accosting for immoral purposes and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor, the pretrial for which is set in the coming weeks. Taken together, the charges and the federal sentence etch a sorrowful epilogue to what was once a respected career in teaching and flight instruction.
