A Searcy man who has been a reserve police officer, a paramedic, a volunteer firefighter and a nurse was indicted Thursday on allegations that he produced child pornography by inducing a 14-year-old boy to send him an explicit photograph.
Meanwhile, a Searcy police detective testified at a detention hearing for the accused, 49-year-old John Robert Ord, that he is suspected of sexually abusing a string of boys over at least 20 years.
Ord, who has been in federal custody since Nov. 22, asked to be released pending trial, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Volpe denied the request. Volpe said Ord posed a danger to the community even if placed on home detention with electronic monitoring, citing the context of a chat between Ord and the boy that was captured on a cellphone and the obvious vulnerability of the boy.
Ord also is facing charges in White County Circuit Court of rape and the simultaneous possession of drugs and guns, after a search of his home in May in which numerous devices containing sexual images of boys were found.
Detective Laurel Aiken testified that the search occurred after a man reported to police that Ord had sexually abused him from the time he was 11 or 12 years old until he was 19. She said that the man was prompted to report the abuse by his family after he became severely depressed and told family members what had happened.
Ord, a family friend who worked in a hospital emergency room with the boy’s mother, regularly babysat him, which is when the abuse began, Aiken said. She said the man told officers that Ord spent the night once and gave him a sleeping pill, and he later woke up to find Ord performing oral sex on him.
From then on, she said, an “arrangement” developed in which Ord provided anything the boy needed, such as an Xbox, in return for sex at Ord’s home or in his vehicle.
Aiken said the man gave police the names of other people, including his brother, who he suspected may also have been sexually abused by Ord, and the brother confirmed that Ord once gave him alcohol for a high school graduation gift and then took him to Ord’s house, where he fell asleep. The brother told police that he awoke to find Ord trying to perform oral sex on him, and that he ran out and went to the nearby house of a friend. Aiken said police interviewed the friend, who remembered the brother frantically knocking on his door and windows to be let inside, but never saying why.
The detective testified that another boy acknowledged that Ord had grabbed him and then teased him about resisting, and over the years asked for sexual favors in return for gifts, but the boy said he never had sex with Ord. Aiken said video from a camera seized from Ord’s home showed him grabbing at the boy as he stepped out of a shower, as the boy stood still. She said that boy suggested officers talk to his younger brother, but the younger boy never showed up for scheduled interviews.
The man whose complaint prompted the investigation told police that he remembered once being forced to watch from the back seat of Ord’s car while Ord molested another boy, but said he didn’t know the boy’s name. Aiken said police tracked down the person, who corroborated the account.
She said the tracked-down boy had been “very poor,” and often didn’t have enough to eat. She said he remembered that Ord would buy food for him or give him money in exchange for sexual favors.
Police later found a message on Ord’s cellphone that revealed a conversation with the boy in which the boy asked for food, telling Ord, “I haven’t eaten in three days.”
That victim, Aiken said, remembered thinking that Ord was a police officer.
Aiken said that Ord was once a part-time police officer, though she didn’t say where. She said he also had worked for a fire department in Newport, was a paramedic and is a registered nurse.
Aiken testified that police issued a news release earlier in the year in an effort to find any other possible victims. As a result, she said, officers heard from a man who said that 20 years ago, when he was 17, Ord got him drunk at a steakhouse in Jonesboro. He said he later woke up at Ord’s house as Ord was performing oral sex on him, and that he had never told anyone about the incident.
Aiken said police verified that Ord was living in Jonesboro at that time.
When the search was carried out at Ord’s home in May, Aiken said, officers found computers, hard drives, thumb drives, guns, badges and prescription-type drugs, like hydrocodone and Tramadol, in little bags. She said police also found alcohol tucked away in the back of cabinets, and batches of gift cards for restaurants. She said officers also found cameras installed in every room, as well as outside the house. Six guns were found in the home, she said, as was a grinder with marijuana residue.
A male dating app called Grinder was open on Ord’s cellphone, Aiken said, and a message sent to Ord through the app was traced to a boy, now 15, who told police that he had met Ord on another app and Ord urged him to get on the Grinder app. That is the boy whose conversation with Ord resulted in the pornography-production charge.
“I have the names of several victims who won’t come forward,” Aiken testified. “One committed suicide three weeks ago.”