A former dean at Camden Military Academy in South Carolina facing sex crime charges against students has been denied bond for a second time.
John Anthony Heflin, 54, appeared before Fifth Circuit Jude Jocelyn Newman during a hearing at the Kershaw County Courthouse on Thursday, where prosecutors argued he was a danger to the community and should remain behind bars.
Newman said that while she presumes Heflin innocent, the nature of the crimes he’s been accused of poses a considerable concern for the safety of the public.
“The nature of the allegations are so severe ... that I find that in these cases, particularly with a single man who lives alone and allegedly commits a crime like this, which is in private, in hiding, in quiet, in the shadows, there are no conditions of bond that will protect the community from the unreasonable danger posed by the defendant,” Newman said.
This summer, Heflin was charged with disseminating harmful material or exhibiting a harmful performance to a minor, second degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 16 years old, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and criminal sexual conduct with a minor in the third degree.
The charges followed a previous charge by the state Law Enforcement Division of criminal solicitation of a minor back in September 2024.
Arrest warrants allege that between May 31 and Aug. 31, 2014, Heflin provided a minor with pornographic material for the purpose of masturbating with the juvenile, based on information from the teen who is now an adult. At the time of the incident, Heflin was a teacher at Camden Military Academy and the juvenile was a student.
Camden Military Academy, founded in 1958, is a military-style boarding school in Camden. The school serves male students between grades 7 and 12, according to information on its website.
During the same time frame, Heflin sexually battered a minor on multiple occasions while the student was under his care, a warrant said. The then-student and now adult claims the sexual battery included forced sexual intercourse, the warrant said.
To aid in his crime, Heflin provided the minor with alcoholic beverages prior to engaging in sexual conduct with the child, according to the warrant.
The warrants were not clear as to whether there was one or more victims.
While on campus at the academy in the spring of 2022, investigators say Heflin committed or attempted to commit a lewd act with another child under his care by touching the minor’s private parts over his clothing, a warrant said.
Earlier this year, a lawsuit against Heflin and other top officials at the academy was filed in federal court, alleging the school “maintained a culture of willing indifference and reckless disregard by failing to monitor Defendant Heflin and by consciously allowing and permitting students to stay overnight at his private residence.”
The suit, which remains pending, was brought by a Florida resident and former Camden Military Academy student who was 14 years old at the school in 2015 when the events described in the lawsuit allegedly took place, according to court records.
In last September’s arrest by SLED, Hefllin was accused of urging a student to send a photo of his private parts to him via social media, according to SLED.
A warrant in that case charged that Heflin “had engaged in sexually explicit conversations” with the juvenile for two years, between 2022 and 2024, with Heflin telling the juvenile what he would ”love to do” if the juvenile came to his house. The charges are pending in Kershaw County state court.
Heflin was also a defendant in a 2017 lawsuit in federal court against him, with Camden Military Academy and two other top military academy officials. That suit alleged that Heflin preyed on a 14-year-old boy at the school, sending him hundreds of text messages and transporting the boy to his home.
In responses to that lawsuit, Camden Military Academy officials denied the allegations and said they were groundless.
That lawsuit was settled in November 2018, according to an order signed by Judge Mary Lewis. The settlement terms were not disclosed. Parties in many kinds of federal court lawsuits are allowed to agree to secret settlements that prevent the public from finding out how much was paid to end the lawsuit.
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