MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald
By:
Bob McGovern
Parents and employees at a small Baptist school in Attleboro were “devastated” when they heard the school’s principal had been charged with sexually abusing a student on campus over nearly five years, and the alleged victim said she felt “relieved” after speaking to police.
The Rev. Jeffrey Nichols, 47, principal of Grace Baptist Christian Academy and assistant pastor at an affiliated church, was arrested early Tuesday after an 18-year-old senior reported to Attleboro police that he had “victimized” her from September 2008 to June 2013, according to a police report obtained by the Herald. Nichols was arraigned Tuesday and is being held on $25,000 cash bail.
“I’m just relieved now, and I feel like he deserves everything he’s getting,” Nichols’ accuser told the Herald.
Church pastor and school co-founder the Rev. Jeffrey Bailey, who has been friends with Nichols for 23 years, said the school community is “devastated.”
“I had no inkling that there were any issues here at all. There was nothing in his behavior, nothing that gave us any clue that this was possible,” Bailey said.
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