The years-old sex scandal at Truett McConnell University in Cleveland is under investigation by a public official and a hired investigator, and each said Wednesday that their investigations were still in the intermediate stages.
Enota Judicial Circuit District Attorney, Jeff Langley, in a brief interview, said, “I’m still interviewing witnesses” and he asserted that his work would take at least two more months before he presents his findings, if any, to the Grand Jury for possible indictment, probably in late September.
Langley had earlier told Now Habersham that he was open to the
possibility of prosecuting
former TMU Vice President Bradley Reynolds or other wrongdoers, if any criminal activity were found.
In a separate inquiry, the outside investigator hired by the TMU Trustees, Richard Hyde of Phoenix Research, LLC in Atlanta, told Now Habersham in a text Wednesday: “[S]till speaking with folks and reviewing documents. It’s a marathon. Not a sprint.”
Langley said that he and Hyde were sharing some information, though their inquiries are separate.
Renewed legal scrutiny
TMU alumna, former soccer player, and former assistant soccer coach Hayle Swinson, who
alleges she was groomed and raped
, beginning in 2009, by Reynolds, brought her charges to light this last May, in a wide-ranging interview with a Christian podcast. Now Habersham and other news outlets picked up on the story, learning that White County Sheriff Rick Kelley initially declined in 2024 to arrest Reynolds when Swinson first reported the alleged abuse. Langley said Kelley did not share the report with the District Attorney’s office. Kelley said he did not believe the allegations would withstand judicial scrutiny, in part because of a state law seemingly excluding colleges and universities from prosecution over sexual relationships between adults.
But when the story went public in early June, law enforcement brought new focus to the case.
TMU trustees placed university President Emir Caner on
administrative leave
from his position on June 6 and temporarily replaced him with Acting President
John O. Yarbrough
, a TMU alumnus and administrator. On the same day, the trustees hired Hyde, who is affiliated with an Atlanta law firm, to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations and school administrators’ handling of the matter.
Abuse allegations
Reynolds’ alleged abuse of Swinson occurred over several years, mainly in the basement of his home, off-campus, during private religious counseling sessions, according to Swinson’s podcast interview. Swinson also sometimes slept over in the Reynolds’ basement, behind what she wrongly believed to be a locked door, she said. It was on those occasions when the worst abuse occurred, she said in her original interview.
Swinson and her attorney offered more than 350 emails, many of them heavily sexual in nature, from Reynolds to Swinson. Some seemed to argue that Swinson had a religious obligation to submit. Reynolds had initially denied he was the author of those emails, but Kelley’s staff was able to determine they came from the vice president’s private email account.
Swinson has declined to speak to the media, apart from the podcast where she first shared her story. She did not respond to a message sent through her website portal on Wednesday.
As reported previously, Bradley Reynolds, contacted in June, identified himself, but then hung up on a reporter. Reynolds was located at a sandwich shop in Texas where he was reportedly working as of early June.
