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Former Desales Choir Director Faces Child-sex Charges

By Kathy Lynn Gray and Allison Manning
Columbus Dispatch
July 23, 2013

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/07/22/state-fair-choir-official-charged.html

Zachary R. Ruppel is charged with soliciting photos and sex from boys.

Investigators are combing through a cache of nude photos that police suspect were solicited by a former youth choir director who is facing child-sex charges.

Already, Zachary R. Ruppel, 26, a former St. Francis DeSales High School choir director and former Ohio State Fair choir staff member, is charged with soliciting nude pictures and sex acts from two boys in exchange for membership in the state fair choir.

But Sgt. Terry McConnell, of the Columbus police sexual-assault unit, said there are many more victims.

Investigators are trying to identify the boys in photos found on Ruppel’s cellphone and iPad, using school yearbooks and, when possible, school staff members to review cropped photos. Some victims, officials say, were DeSales students; some were choir members.

“This thing is huge,” McConnell said. “There’s tons of information to go through. It’s going to take a long time.”

Ruppel, of 4906 Lunar Dr., was a member of the state fair choir staff in 2011. He was choir director at DeSales from fall 2010 until the end of this school year, when he told the school he would not be returning. A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus said there were no disciplinary issues with Ruppel.

Ruppel is charged with two counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles, fifth-degree felonies, and one count of compelling prostitution, a felony of the third degree. Arrest complaints against Ruppel say that he asked a 15-year-old boy on April 28 to engage in oral sex for $100. On July 6, he sent a 17-year-old boy photographs of an erect penis.

McConnell said yesterday that complaints about Ruppel might have been made as far back as 2011, but police weren’t notified. Investigators are trying to determine whether “those responsible for reporting these offenses did so as required by law.”

The director of the fair choir, Charles R. Snyder, was put on leave on July 11 by fair manager Virgil Strickler because of the investigation.

Snyder’s attorney, Randy Peddicord of Coshocton, said on Friday that Snyder had reported information to fair officials shortly after he learned that choir members might have been victims. Peddicord said Snyder would not comment on the investigations.

Strickler said yesterday that Snyder and two other fair-choir staff members reported Ruppel’s suspected actions this month. Strickler said he immediately placed all three on unpaid leave and reported the information to Columbus police.

Police have cleared the other two staff members, and they have returned to work with the choir; Snyder hasn’t yet been cleared.

The state fair opens on Wednesday. The 200 members of the fair choir, who live at the fairgrounds during rehearsals and the 12-day fair, arrived last Thursday. An assistant has taken over as director while Snyder is on leave.

McConnell said he hopes other victims will reach out to police with information about Ruppel.

“We know that there are other instances of that with other people,” McConnell said. “We just need them to come forward.”

 

 

 

 

 




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