ISLAMORADA, Florida (16 Sep 2003) -- A Miami man has been arrested on charges he fondled four teenage boys from Pennsylvania at a Boy Scout camp in the Florida Keys. Keith Walker, 26, was accused by the boys of reaching into their bathing suits during a scuba diving class at the Florida Sea Base Camp on Aug. 13. The boys, ages 14 and 15, immediately reported the abuse, said the camp's general manager, Dennis St. Jean. A "very remorseful" Walker was fired one hour later, St. Jean said. Walker was a PADI scuba instructor at the Seabase camp. Walker was arrested on Thursday, three weeks after a warrant was issued for four counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a minor, said Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. Detectives said an earlier arrest was delayed when Walker evidently avoided his Miami apartment. Walker, held on $150,000 bond, will be returned to Monroe County to face the charges, Herrin said. The alleged fondling took place halfway through a scuba certification program in a dive tank attended by a group of eight teenage boys from the Philadelphia area, St. Jean said. | | PADI scuba instructor Keith Walker Walker singled out four of the teens and took them, one by one, to a section of the tank away from their group, where the abuse allegedly occurred, St. Jean said. St. Jean said Boy Scout policy, to head off possible sexual abuse, mandates that no boys can be alone with one adult. Another adult counselor was in attendance but was at another location in the dive tank when the alleged fondling took place, he said. Walker had cleared the camp's background check and taught there for three summers and a spring session, St. Jean said. He had no prior criminal record in Florida. |
