An Etowah man, previously arrested for child sexual abuse but let off by former District Attorney Greg Newman when he reduced the charge to assault on a female, was back in court Aug. 30 for similar charges.
He says he is innocent, again.
Johnathan Jessi McKinney appeared in court four months after the 37-year-old was indicted by a grand jury on 24 counts of child sexual abuse and arrested by Transylvania County Sheriff’s Deputies.
McKinney previously pleaded not guilty to the charges. McKinney’s attorney, Jack Stewart said his client maintains his innocence, adding that McKinney has “vigorously denied” the allegations since they were made. Stewart said McKinney has every intention of bringing the case to trial.
On April 29, McKinney received a $500,000 bond. He posted it and was released the same day. At a May 3 court hearing, an additional condition on his release was added: that he have no contact with the victims and their families. Attorney Stewart of Asheville said that rule still stands.
The court set the next date in McKinney’s case for Dec. 13, which Stewart said will be an administrative hearing where attorneys are likely to file pretrial motions and pick a trial date.
McKinney’s charges include statutory rape of a child by an adult, indecent liberties with a child, first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, felony child abuse, and statutory sexual offenses with a child by an adult.
The indictments allege McKinney sexually abused three children for a period stretching from 2013-20. He’s accused of raping two children, one instance began when the child was between the ages of 6-8, and also forcing young children to perform sexual acts on each other.
The charges against McKinney came after a family member of one of the child victims reported the abuse to the sheriff’s office in February. Det. Mark Ellenberger told the Citizen Times in April that it took two months for deputies to investigate and acquire enough evidence to bring the case to a grand jury and arrest McKinney.
McKinney faced child sexual abuse allegations in 2016 when he was arrested and charged with indecent liberties with a child, a felony. He posted bond and nearly a year later, then-Transylvania County D.A. Newman dropped the indecent liberties charge and replaced it with an “assault on a female” charge, which is a misdemeanor.
McKinney pleaded guilty to that. He was sentenced to time served, meaning the one day he’d spent in jail.
Newman was removed from his position as the top prosecutor for Transylvania, Henderson and Polk counties on April 27, 2021, a role he held for eight years, after crime survivors and their families say he failed to properly investigate and prosecute their cases which included alleged rape and alleged murder.
In February, a group of those families filed an affidavit in Henderson County Superior Court in which they argued as much.
After a three-day hearing, Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin ruled that Newman had committed “willful misconduct in office” and “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the office into disrepute.”
He was removed from office but not disbarred. Newman now works as a court-appointed attorney for the indigent in Buncombe County.
Jason Hayes, an assistant district attorney for Transylvania County, is representing the state in the current case. According to his LinkedIn, he's been at the D.A.'s office since 2018, meaning he worked under Newman previously.
