Former Freeburg High School band director charged with soliciting sex with a minor
UPDATE May 29, 2024: The story was updated to reflect conflicting information about the gender of the purported victim.
A former band director at Freeburg Community High School was arrested in Oklahoma for allegedly soliciting sex with a minor, among other charges.
Keith Mitchell, a 70-year-old Freeburg resident, allegedly drove from Illinois to a motel in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to meet a teenager he had been messaging with online. The child was actually a group that lures predators and turns them over to police.
Superintendent Greg Frerking confirmed that Mitchell was formerly employed as the band director at Freeburg Community High School District 77 for 36 years before retiring in 2012.
At about 5:47 p.m. on May 17, Shawnee police officers responded to the Super 8 at 5104 N. Harrison St. for a possible sex crime, according to the incident report. A group called the Oklahoma Predator Prevention had called the police department to report a predator that was supposed to meet a 15-year-old girl at the motel, the report stated.
Video posted on social media by Oklahoma Predator Prevention shows the confrontation its members had with Mitchell in the hotel room. In their discussions, they identify the fictional victim as a 15-year-old boy named “Josh” and read back portions of the alleged messaging exchange between the two.
Mitchell acknowledges in the video sharing messages with “Josh,” but claims the boy told him he was 18 years old.
It’s not clear why police identified Josh as a female in its report.
The group told police that it had been messaging Mitchell pretending to be the juvenile victim, that he had been messaging back to say he was going to drive from his Illinois residence to the Super 8 so they could meet.
The group also informed police that it wished to speak with the predator and would call the police back to share the room number they were in, which they did at about 5:44 p.m.
Police arrested Mitchell and transported him to the Pottawatomie County Public Safety Center, the county jail.
According to the jail, Mitchell was booked for soliciting sexual conduct with a minor by use of technology, lewd or indecent acts/proposals to a child and violation of the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act. He made his $20,000 bond on May 20.
