A federal law enforcement agent tasked with “trying to provide justice in cases involving kids” has been charged with child rape in Alabama, state authorities said on Tuesday.
Kent Blacklidge, described as a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), turned himself over to the Baldwin county jail on ۵ September in connection with a grand jury indictment charging him with first- and second-degree rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, police in the city of Spanish Fort said in a statement.
During a Tuesday news conference, Spanish Fort police chief John Barber said the charges against Blacklidge, ۴۳, stemmed from an ۱۱ January child sexual abuse report involving an underage girl. The Spanish Fort police statement said Blacklidge had been put on administrative leave by HSI as soon as officers began investigating the complaint against him.
Barber said Blacklidge was charged after officers conducted interviews and gathered other unspecified evidence into that complaint, about which the chief declined to release specific details.
“It takes an unbelievable amount of courage and strength for a victim of these types of crime to come forward,” Barber said at Tuesday’s news conference. “And I commend our victim for having that resolve.”
Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall said it was particularly disturbing to have to prosecute Blacklidge on child sexual abuse allegations because his responsibilities at HSI included “trying to provide justice in cases involving kids”.
He “was directly involved with child exploitation cases, working with these cases and raising awareness”, Marshall added. “That’s why it’s so profoundly disappointing and frankly disgusting that we stand here today and tell you that we charged him” with crimes that are incongruent with “what his professional responsibility was”.
Marshall further remarked: “It is also to be reaffirming to the public [that] it is our responsibility to follow the facts and apply the law regardless of what you’ve done, regardless of where you work and regardless of who you are.”
An attendee of Tuesday’s news conference told Marshall at one point that “we had covered” Blacklidge previously at a seminar where he provided training to local public school teachers about how to detect online predators targeting children for sex crimes.
The Alabama attorney general said his staff is handling the charges against Blacklidge because Blacklidge is a witness in some cases being prosecuted by the local district attorney’s office, requiring the latter agency to recuse itself.
Barber and Marshall each argued that Blacklidge’s charges should not reflect on the entire law enforcement field.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees HSI, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the charges against Blacklidge.
But the DHS has faced scrutiny over its employee vetting practices after it received an unprecedented $۱۷۰bn in funding for immigration and border enforcement securities amid the Trump administration’s drive for mass deportations.
The Associated Press reported in February that another agency under DHS’s purview, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had seen at least two dozen of its employees and contractors be charged with various crimes since ۲۰۲۰.
Blacklidge by Tuesday had been released from jail on bond pending the outcome of his case, according to facility records. Remarks from Marshall on Tuesday suggested his bond amount had been set at more than $۳۵۰,۰۰۰.
As a condition of his release on bond, Blacklidge would have to submit electronic monitoring, home confinement, and an order to neither contact the victim in the case nor anyone else under the age of ۱۸, Marshall said.
A message left for Blacklidge at a telephone number associated with him was not immediately returned.
