Youth Mentor Charged With Sex Abuse of Teen

A mentor for a nonprofit anti-violence group that works with youths in the District has been charged with second-degree sexual abuse after he allegedly kissed and fondled a student at a Northeast Washington high school.

Barry Harrison, 50, is a convicted killer who worked for Peaceoholics in a program at Spingarn High School, authorities said. In charging papers, police said that he kissed and fondled a 15-year-old girl April 14 in the basement of the school on Benning Road NE.

The charging papers also stated that Harrison recently told another 15-year-old student that he was going to "kidnap" her and "have fun like sex" with her. Other female students also reported that Harrison talked about having sexual relationships with the girls, according to the charging documents.

Harrison appeared Monday in D.C. Superior Court, where he was ordered held at the D.C. jail pending a follow-up hearing April 30.

Harrison, of the 1600 block of Kenilworth Avenue NE, pleaded guilty last year to a drug charge. He earlier served time in prison for a second-degree murder conviction in the 1980s and was released in 2006.

WTTG-TV (Channel 5) reported Harrison's arrest Monday.

Ronald Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics, said yesterday that Harrison started working for the nonprofit last month after being placed with the organization by Project Empowerment, a District-run program that offers employment and training to ex-offenders.

Peaceoholics has 70 full- and part-time workers and consultants and works in many parts of the city. The group has received about $7.6 million in grants from the D.C. government in the past four years.

Moten said his office conducted a background check on Harrison but that Harrison's murder charge did not show up in the records review because the check went back only 10 years. The check revealed Harrison's 2008 cocaine possession charge and the 100 days he spent in a halfway house.

Project Empowerment officials did not return telephone calls yesterday.

In the past three years, Moten said, Peaceoholics has employed 16 individuals from Project Empowerment and has had to fire only one person, who at the time was suspected of dealing drugs.

"If we had known he had a murder charge, we wouldn't have put him in the schools," Moten said.

Moten said Harrison was assigned to work with at-risk students at Spingarn and with community issues in high-crime neighborhoods areas such as Kenilworth and Trinidad.