Ponca City High School teacher Michael Clinton Grimes, 59, was arrested on Friday afternoon on three felony counts of child abuse. He was released on a $5,000 bond.

According to the affidavit, Grimes is accused of taking inappropriate pictures of students, staff members and unknown women.

Cpt. Eric Welch, a school resource officer at Ponca City High School, said he was called to the main office on Nov. 21, 2019, to speak with principal Thad Dilbeck who provided him with witness and victim statements regarding the alleged crimes. The victims and witnesses claim that they were photographed by Grimes during class and in a lab class.

Grimes was interviewed and said in the affidavit that he was informed that an accusation was made of him possibly taking inappropriate pictures. “There shouldn’t be any truth to that accusation. I can’t say that pictures were being taken during our lab today or our lab a few weeks ago. I don’t even use my phone for video to the best of my knowledge,” he said in the affidavit.

Grimes said the situation made him feel uneasy. “I’m angry and floored by the situation. I’ve always tried to protect myself and take measures against allegations like this from coming up.”

A search warrant was executed on Nov. 22, 2019 and the phone was taken by Det. Sgt. Josh Henderson of the PCPD. According to the affidavit, the phone was taken to the Stillwater Police Department to retrieve contents of files that had been deleted.

Henderson said he returned to the PCPD with the phone and an external hard drive with the retrieved data. Henderson said he was able to retrieve multiple pictures of what appeared to be female students at Po-Hi with multiple pictures of the buttocks area of female students in the high school gym, hallways, stair wells and classrooms.

Henderson said during the investigation he contacted four female students at Po-Hi who identified themselves as being the subjects in the photos recovered from Grimes’ phone. There were multiple other students whose pictures were on the phone, but due to the nature of the photographs, Henderson said he was unable to confirm their identities.

Henderson said he located 257 photographs of students, attempted photographs of students, staff members and unknown women. The vast majority of the photos were taken inside Ponca City High School, according to Henderson. He also said of the 257 pictures, he did not locate any photos where it appeared the women or students in the photo had any knowledge their photo was being taken or had the chance to give consent to have their pictures taken.

Grimes is scheduled to appear in Kay County District Court on June 5 at 9 a.m. for an initial appearance.