A Maumelle High School band director has bonded out after surrendering Wednesday on a warrant for his arrest in a sex-assault case, authorities said.
Maumelle Police Department Capt. Jim Hansard said Carl Mouton, 54, surrendered at the Maumelle Police Department shortly before 4 p.m. He posted a $15,000 bail about an hour later on a charge of second-degree sexual assault, a class B felony.
A preliminary court appearance is scheduled Tuesday in Maumelle District Court, Hansard said.
Maumelle police said they received a fax Wednesday from the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division regarding a report of inappropriate touching involving the employee and a minor.
According to a Maumelle Police Department report, a student told investigators that, beginning in her 10th-grade year, she gave hugs to Mouton at the end of class that later grew to include him grabbing and squeezing her butt.
The conduct, which allegedly continued through the student's senior year, also included the employee lifting her shirt, exposing her breast and inappropriately touching her in that area during a school-related summer activity in July 2015, the student told police.
The minor added that she had a crush on the band director and that she considered the activities “their little thing.”
She had hidden the encounters until confiding in a best friend at the beginning of the year, the report states. That friend then told her mother, who reported the information to state police, according to Maumelle police.
According to police, the employee Thursday denied inappropriately touching the student and did not understand why he was being accused of sexual misconduct.
Deb Roush, spokesman for the Pulaski County Special School District, confirmed that an employee has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of an investigation, but declined to provide a name.