— Authorities are continuing to investigate the activities of an Upstate church leader and YMCA program director who is accused of sending naked pictures of himself to a teenage girl in Anderson County.
Stephen Lyle Wakefield, a youth leader at Truth Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, is charged with criminal solicitation of a minor.
Stephen Lyle Wakefield
Investigators with the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office say Wakefield, 24, sent pictures of his nude body to a 13-year-old girl whom he met at the church.
Authorities say Wakefield sent the photos to the girl from November of last year until February of this year. Deputies say the girl’s father reported the activities to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. Wakefield was charged Friday and was released from the Anderson County jail after posting a $10,000 surety bond.
For about a year, Wakefield was also the site director of an after-school program sponsored by the Greenville YMCA. He supervised the activities at the Y’s offsite after-school program at Blythe Academy of Languages in Greenville.
A spokeswoman for the Greenville YMCA said Wakefield resigned from the job last Sunday evening in an email sent to a supervisor.
“We had no idea that anything was amiss,” said Dusty Deming, a spokeswoman for the Greenville Y. “We do background checks on our employees and he had a clean background check, a clean record.
“Our top priority at the YMCA is, of course and absolutely, the safety of the children,” Deming said Saturday. We are committed to that, and we have no indication at this point that any of this activity happened at the after-school program.
We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure the safety of the children,” Deming said. “This is all very fresh to us. We are shocked.”
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