A Baltimore County judge on Monday released a former Baltimore teacher accused of the second-degree rape of his 12-year-old neighbor who was being held at home.
Lewis M. Laury Jr., 24, taught American history at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School until this summer, when he was arrested in July after authorities found a missing 12-year-old girl at his Pikesville home. A grand jury indicted him on 24 charges, including 12 counts of second-degree rape and other sex offense charges.
Assistant State’s Attorney Jessica Borits said during Monday’s bail review hearing that another girl — a 16-year-old Mervo student — had previously complained that Laury had acted inappropriately toward her.
That teen, who Borits described as one of Laury’s American history students, reported that Laury discussed sex with her and then gave her a ride home while asking her if she liked “older men” and about her “kinks.” Laury asked her if she wanted to have sex with him and she said no, Borits said.
“The defendant is a predator,” Borits said. No charges have been filed in connection with this allegation, she said.
Laury’s attorney, Jerome Bivens, said the principal and school resource officer investigated the student’s claim and took no action.
Sherry Christian, spokesperson for Baltimore City Public Schools, could not immediately answer questions about the student’s complaint Monday afternoon.
Borits said the U.S. Marshals Service discovered the missing girl, who left a note for her parents saying she was visiting a friend in Pennsylvania. in Junehad used a friend’s phone to call Laury, allowing authorities to track her to his home. He wasn’t home when they found her.
The girl told police she met Laury at the playground and told him she was 22. She reported that they had had sex. which is considered rape in Maryland if either person is under the age of 16to a Greater Baltimore Medical Center nurse when she was at the hospital for a sexual assault forensic exam, 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 exam, Borits said. She was 12 years old at the time, meaning the activity was charged as second-degree rape. Under Maryland law, it is a crime for someone to have sex with someone under the age of 14 if they are four years of age or older.
DNA results and cell phone data are still pending.
Borits said Laury told detectives that the girl had slept in his bed while he slept in the living room and that his memory may have been impaired by alcohol and marijuana. Laury also gave investigators a piece of paper he used to try to verify the girl’s age in a written contract she signed that stated her “expectations and needs,” Borits said.
Laury’s attorney Jerome Bivens said his client did not rape the girl and claimed the girl did not tell investigators he had done so during their “elopement.”
“There was no sex,” Bivens said. He told Judge Robert E. Cahill Jr. from the Circuit Court that the girl had knocked on his client’s door with luggage and $200, telling him she wanted to escape her abusive boyfriend. Bivens said Laury told her she could stay temporarily.
Cahill granted Biven’s request to release Laury from the Baltimore County Detention Center on home surveillance charges, adding that while the facts of the case are “terribly serious and terribly concerning,” the law would require him obliged to oppose the least burdensome conditions of pre-trial detention while at the same time guaranteeing safety. safety of the public and any victims.
He also expressed concern that the trial could drag on indefinitely as prosecutors await the extraction of DNA and cellphone data from backup labs and the FBI. Cahill ordered Laury to stay home at all times, without going to work or school, and not to contact the girl or her relatives.
“I must reiterate that I am following the law here,” the judge said. A trial date for the case has not yet been set.
Before asking for his client’s release, Bivens asked six people filling a row of the courtroom to stand to illustrate Laury’s strong ties to the community. He introduced Laury’s parents and attorney Nicholas McDaniels, who served as a mentor to Laury.
Bivens said Laury was away in Frederick, doing work for McDaniels’ law firm, when police found the girl.
Laury attended Mervo as an undergraduate and then graduated from Towson University, where Bivens said he gave the commencement address and was on the dean’s list every semester. He previously studied law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Bivens said Laury spent a year in law school, “took time off from his legal education to start a family” and worked for Baltimore City Schools for two years.
“Teachers are heroes,” Bivens told Cahill. “Look at me, Your Honor, I’m a black man, I was born in Baltimore and so was he.”
In July, a law school spokesperson said Laury had not been enrolled “in a while.” A spokesperson did not respond to a question Monday about the circumstances of his departure.
Court records show that Laury married a woman in 2021 who later alleged in divorce proceedings that he forced her into marriage and committed adultery. A judge ruled against the two in July 2023, after they had been separated for over a year.
Laury’s former brother-in-law and mother-in-law both claimed he attacked them in their Montgomery County home in December 2021 after forcing his way inside. In both cases, a judge issued final protective orders. These cases are not criminal cases and require a lower burden of proof.
