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Pediatrician arrested in sexual assault of 14-year-old he used to tutor, SC cops say

A pediatrics doctor and former substitute teacher was arrested after deputies said he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old he was tutoring in 2018 in South Carolina.
A pediatrics doctor and former substitute teacher was arrested after deputies said he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old he was tutoring in 2018 in South Carolina. Getty Images/iStockphoto

A pediatrician who used to be a substitute teacher was arrested after deputies said he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy he was tutoring in 2018 in South Carolina.

Robert Dewayne Williams was arrested on May 4 by the U.S. Marshals Service in Jefferson County, Alabama, on charges of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor 11 to 14 years of age, according to a news release from the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities said an investigation began on April 4 after the teen, now 18, reported he had been sexually assaulted in May 2018.

“The victim, now 18, told deputies that he was assaulted by Williams after they had watched a movie together in a theater,” a spokesperson from the sheriff’s office told McClatchy News in a statement.

Williams had started tutoring the 14-year-old in science after they met while he was substitute teaching at the teen’s high school, deputies said. They had gone to see the movie “Deadpool 2” on May 28, 2018, and afterward they drove to an unknown location in West Ashley, where Williams began showing the teen “different ways to check his pulse,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Williams is accused of putting his hands inside the teen’s pants, the affidavit states, and the teen told him “this wasn’t right and began to cry.”

After reporting the sexual assault almost four years later, the teen made a “pretext call” to Williams on April 23, in which the defendant acknowledged he had pulled over to show the teen “different pulse points on his body,” the affidavit states.

But Williams “denied doing anything sexual to the victim,” according to the affidavit.

Deputies said Williams was a substitute teacher at several elementary, middle and high schools in South Carolina between 2017 and 2018. At the time, he was a student at the Medical University of South Carolina. Williams has since become a pediatrics resident at a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, according to the release.

Williams, 37, is awaiting extradition to South Carolina, according to authorities.

Detectives ask anyone with information about Williams to contact the sheriff’s office at 843-743-7200.

If you have experienced sexual assault and need someone to talk to, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for support at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the hotline's online chatroom.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Pediatrician arrested in sexual assault of 14-year-old he used to tutor, SC cops say."

Cassandre Coyer
mcclatchy-newsroom
Cassandre Coyer is a McClatchy National Real-Time Reporter covering the southeast while based in Washington D.C. She’s an alumna of Emerson College in Boston and joined McClatchy in 2022. Previously, she’s written for The Christian Science Monitor, RVA Mag, The Untitled Magazine, and more.
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