Theatre teacher charged with 21 counts child pornography
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
TW: This story contains graphic details of sexual assault.
A federal grand jury last month charged a former High School drama teacher with 21 counts of producing and distributing child pornography. Michael Dendy taught at Washington County High School in Sandersville, GA from August 2020 until he was arrested on January 20, 2023.
Dendy taught at three schools previously: Griffin High School in Griffin, Georgia, from 2018-2020; St. Charles High School in Waldorf, Maryland, from 2017-2018; and Starkville High School in Starkville, Mississippi, from 2014-2016.
The indictment alleges that Dendy enticed minor children to engage in sexually explicit acts which were filmed or photographed. In addition, Dendy allegedly distributed, received, and possessed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) of minors.
Sheriff Joel Cochran said Dendy may have been involved with around 16 minors and that some of the victims were Washington County students.
He is charged with five counts of producing child pornography, seven counts of distributing, eight counts of receiving, and one count of possessing child pornography.
If convicted, Dendy faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and up to a maximum sentence of thirty years in prison for each count of production of child pornography.
He faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to a maximum sentence of twenty years for each count of distribution and receipt of child pornography.
Dendy faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison for possessing child pornography.
Dendy could face up to 460 years in prison if convicted of all charges at the maximum sentence. At a minimum, he could face up to 150 years in prison.
The investigation in Dendy began when complaints were made to the school.
The community has been rocked by the case.
“It’s just been a terrible situation that we’re having to deal with so our focus now is really working with our children and our parents and try to continue on,” said Dr. Rickey Edmond, Washington Co. School Superintendent.
“I think it’s incredibly sad and it’s scary, you know. One day I want to have kids and I’m gonna have to send them to school. So, I have to be worried about ‘are they gonna be preyed upon by their teachers,’” former student Gracie Howard said to local news.
Gracie Howard is a former student at Washington County High School.
“I mean all my friends in high school were in theater. So, I was like oh my God, what if something happened to my friends. So, it was just very concerning.”
Parent Jenny Josey told local news,
“My daughter is going into her senior year and my son is going into his eighth-grade year,” Josey says.
She says both her kids are involved in theater and the arts, so it hits hard.
“I think that it affects our children differently because it's the first time that they've seen someone that they trusted take advantage of them,” she explains.
Josey says while it's scary, they're glad he's been charged.
“I think that we knew it was coming and I hope that they put him under the prison.”
This is not the first time Dendy made headlines for controversial incidents. Back in 2016, it was reported that he had been banned from entering a previous school he taught at.
After Dendy had resigned from teaching at Starkville High School in Starkville, Mississippi, for unclear reasons but he called “under duress”, he tried to come back to the school and attend their production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. A school official saw him in the theatre and asked him to leave.
The school at the time put out a statement that said,
"We are aware that a former teacher has been on campus twice in the last month. His actions created a situation where the school felt like his presence was disruptive, and he was asked to leave,” the district’s statement reads, yet it does not offer specifics of Dendy’s actions.
At the time, Dendy protested having to resign his position. Local news reported,
“Dendy said a photo in which he was pictured sitting at a table with beer bottles on it was taken of him during a trip with students to a national theatre competition in North Carolina.
He said district officials apparently became upset at the suggestion he was drinking alcohol while serving as a chaperone, but the former teacher said he wasn’t drinking at the time and that the table simply had not yet been cleaned by restaurant staff.
“I was told to resign so they could still give me a recommendation if I tried to get another teaching job,” Dendy said. “It was like a courtesy thing, I guess. I was grateful for that at least.”
Dendy told local news that he kept in direct communication with many of his former students — some of whom were minors attending SHS — since his resignation. It is unclear if the nature of his contact is what led to his being banned from campus.
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This is sadly not the first time a theatre teacher has been charged and sentenced on charges of child pornography, especially when the victims are their students.
In 2021, a theatre teacher was sentenced after he was found possessing child pornography of former students. Ryan Pullen, formerly a theater teacher at Union Mine High School in CA, was arrested after other school staff discovered Pullen was in possession of a video of students in various states of undress. He was only sentenced to a year in prison and two years probation.
That same year, Raphael Schklowsky a theatre teacher in VA plead guilty to taking inappropriate photos of students as well as possession of child pornography and other lewd materials. According to prosecutors, Schklowsky took pictures of up skirts and down blouses of students with his iPhone between May 2017 and June 2018. The former drama teacher also reported to have installed a small camera in a dressing room to record students while they changed. After his guilty plea, he was sentenced to four years in prison.
And this past June, a former theatre teacher at a private school in Denver was arrested for sexually assaulting a student. Charles Reginald "Reggie" Gwinn faces counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. According to an arrest affidavit, Gwinn was the girl's theatre teacher when she was in sixth grade. During one incident she said he followed her into the girl's bathroom and into a stall to assist her with a costume change. She said during that interaction Gwinn touched her chest area. She described feeling Gwinn's breath on her body and said it felt "gross."
And even more sadly, these won’t be the last cases to come out. Monsters like these will use any means to gain access to their victims, including taking advantage of their love of theatre and abusing the trust that is inherent between those who participate in it. My hope is that these crimes will be reported as they are being committed and that school districts take extra measures to protect the safety of their students.
Parents and guardians of children who may have encountered Dendy and have concerns related to this investigation can contact the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) tip line at 1-866-347-2423.