James Stewart Thomas appears in a WSMV-TV screengrab.
A county corrections officer who was appointed to care for a Tennessee teen who was kidnapped by her teacher and taken across state lines for sex has now himself been indicted for lying about the alleged sexual abuse of an inmate. That’s according to federal court documents and a report by Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV.
The jailer, James Stewart Thomas, 31, of Columbia, Tennessee, is accused of one count of falsifying records in connection with the alleged rape for the inmate, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Thomas is the brother and legal custodian of Elizabeth Thomas, the then-15-year-old who vanished with her then-50-year-old teacher Tad Cummins on March 13, 2017. The student was rescued on April 20, 2017, after a nationwide AMBER Alert; she and Cummins were holed up in what the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation described as a “rural cabin” near Cecilville, California. Cummins was charged with sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping, the TBI said at the time Cummins was arrested.
These images released by the TBI show Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas both were missing.
Cummins pleaded guilty to federal charges of transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual conduct and obstruction of justice in April 2018.
Federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Cummins groomed the victim, performed sex acts on her “in his classroom closet,” and then made plans to run away with her. Cummins researched “the type of bed that would fit…
