CLAY CO.—One of Clay County’s more notorious self-styled Casanovas has finally slipped up thanks to too much documentation of his alleged doings.
And sadly enough, because he’s so well-liked, a lot of victim-blaming is going on in the latest case involving Mychal Bush-King, 22, the situation having lead to some very serious charges that by all rights might be going federal in the near future.
Bush-King was charged formally on February 13 with a single count of Child Pornography, a Class X felony, and a single count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse, a Class 2 felony.
Father finds vid, texts
The case evolved when a man who is a neighbor to Bush-King, who resides on the 200 block of East Fourth Street in Flora, approached Flora authorities on Feb. 8, bearing with him his 14-year-old daughter’s cell phone.
On it was at least one video of his daughter nude and in a lewd display of her pubic area and at least one breast.
While such a thing seems to be growing more common these days with children who don’t know better, and who have access to electronic devices on which they can photograph and tape themselves doing all kinds of things, that didn’t turn out to be the case with this video: It was reportedly obvious that the girl hadn’t videotaped herself, but that someone else was doing the filming.
The clue about who it was came in the form of multiple text messages between the 14-year-old and Bush-King. The text messages were reported to be entirely sexual in nature and implied sexual activity between the two.
Based on this, authorities called Bush-King in for questioning immediately.
During questioning of not only Bush-King, but others associated with the case in a peripheral manner, authorities learned that there had been underage drinking parties being hosted at the Bush-King residence, with teen girls being regularly in attendance.
It’s unclear whether or not authorities elicited from anyone any alleged sexual activity between Bush-King and any other females besides the one whose father made the initial complaint.
Sneaking out; other photos
It was discovered that the 14-year-old in question was allegedly sneaking out of her house late at night to attend these soirees, one of which resulted in the video.
In order to be as thorough as possible, search warrants were requested. One of the items reportedly searched was Bush-King’s laptop.
There, it was reported to Disclosure by sources familiar with the investigation, Bush-King had numerous photos of underage, unclothed girls. Most were identified only by first name in folders on the hard drive.
Bush-King also reportedly admitted to sexual activity with the 14-year-old girl in question during a two-day time frame in early February, during his interview with authorities. It’s unclear how this admission came about, and whether it had to do with careful questioning…or whether he was faced with irrefutable proof in the form of the videotape and thereby couldn’t deny it.
He was arrested and charged with the two counts. The Child Porn charge states that between January 1, and February 8, 2015, at his residence on East Fourth Street, Bush-King committed the offense in that he “videotaped, by means of a cellular telephone, a female minor (identified only as Jane Doe), whom he reasonably should have known to be under the age of 18, and such video depicted or portrayed the minor in lewd exhibition of the unclothed pubic area and breast.”
The Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse count alleges that the activity occurred between Feb. 6 and Feb. 8, in that Bush-King “placed his penis in the vagina of Jane Doe, a minor at least 13 years of age, but under 17 years of age and he was at least five years older than Jane Doe.”
Disgusting public support
Bush-King made an appearance in custody of the Clay County Sheriff’s Department Feb. 9, the day after he’d been taken in on arresting charges. His bail was set at $100,000 ($10,000 cash) and he was appointed public defender Chris Elliott.
Special conditions of his bond, should he be able to make it, were that he have no contact with any school property and that he was not to be in the presence of any child under the age of 18.
When formal charges emerged on Friday, Feb. 13, Disclosure posted information about Bush-King on the paper’s website, and subsequently on its Facebook page and other social networking sites…which created a firestorm of people whining, effectively about how Bush-King was merely a victim of the little girl’s seductiveness.
The sickening display of victim-blaming carried on for days, and extended to slams against the child’s family and alleged sexual misconduct of their own with other members of the community.
What was most disturbing were specific comments such as those regarding how young teens dress and behave these days, as well as the absurd “You can’t rape the willing” which actually popped up on the Facebook page.
Despite being shown Illinois law where it outlines that a perpetrator can indeed rape the “willing” (being a child under the age of 18, who, due to Illinois Compiled Statutes, is not a legal adult and cannot, by law give consent), the sickening display of ignorance continued, typifying a cross-section of Clay County that, over the past 13 years of coverage by this newspaper, seems to have a very warped sense of what constitutes acceptable sexual conduct.
The ‘do-no-wrong’ faction
As well, it typified the sort of favor that’s shown to the more ‘glamorous’ among their community, which Bush-King somehow became…despite his propensity toward fighting (which Disclosure covered when he was in his early years in high school in Flora) as well as his proclivities toward sexual conduct with young girls.
While it may have been something that wouldn’t have been charged in 2010 before he had turned 18 (because his alleged victims at the time were not five years younger or more than he, a critical component of the law if sexual assault or abuse has occurred; this is a maddening gray area that Illinois lawmakers have not yet addressed), reports nevertheless came in, in particular, at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.
In these reports, concerned parents contacted Disclosure regarding Bush-King’s sexual antics with their underage girls ranging in age from 13 to 17.
Many were armed with police reports of the activity, most of which had occurred during Bush-King’s senior year in 2009-10, the year he graduated from Flora High School. Some of them had actually communicated with Clay County’s prosecutor, Marilyn Brant, about the allegations of sexual activity between their young girls and Bush-King.
Investigation leads to April 2011 article
Disclosure investigated the allegations for several months, verifying the police reports and checking with sources associated with the state’s attorney’s office. In a comprehensive article presented in the April 2011 issue, these were presented.
This is the article in full:
CLAY CO.—Authorities have confirmed that an investigation into an alleged series of sexual assaults is ongoing in Flora and potentially throughout Clay County.
Law enforcement officials have told Disclosure that a first report of a sexual assault, alleged to have been perpetrated by Mychal Bush-King, 19, occurred last September, and since that time, there have been no fewer than four more young girls having reported the same thing.
A relative of one of the young girls making the reports—who range in age from 13 to 17—first advised Disclosure of the case in March, and stated that as far as he knew, the investigation had been going on for six months, regarding activity occurring during the 2010 school year.
“This is the big high school hero,” the relative told Disclosure March 3, 2011. “He was in football and was the homecoming king.” (Editor’s note: The source was confusing Homecoming with the Sweetheart dance event, in which Bush-King was crowned king and one Brittany Booth was crowned queen in February of 2010).
The relative advised that Bush-King had joined the Marines last summer, and while the six-month investigation had been ongoing, the boy had been in boot camp.
“But he was home on leave recently,” the relative said, “and they (authorities) questioned him.”
During questioning, it was reported that Bush-King denied having any kind of sexual contact with the 13-year-old; and said that sex with the 17-year-old was consensual.
Law enforcement authorities advised Disclosure of the difficulties of charging someone who is going through training in order to be in any branch of the military, but stated that with the time they had with Bush-King, the investigation was thorough.
Both the relative and local law enforcement authorities told Disclosure that Bush-King was told, when he was home on leave between boot camp/training, that he would be “watched” while he was at school functions, as all the alleged victims were still in school.
Most of the incidents are reported to have happened within city limits of Flora, which is Bush-King’s hometown, although one reported to Disclosure was said to have occurred within the village of Louisville. One of the incidents was reported to have occurred in a bathroom at one of the schools.
The relative, as well as law enforcement, advised that the investigation, due to the nature of it (underage sexual assault), was turned over early on to the Illinois State Police District 12 post out of Effingham, where special agent Albert Gallatin was put in charge of it.
Calls to Gallatin’s voice mailbox at District 12 were unreturned as of press time.
The relative told Disclosure that ISP officials advised him there was “no question in their mind that these incidents happened,” and turned their findings over to Clay County state’s attorney Marilyn Brant for prosecution.
That, however, hasn’t happened yet.
According to sources, Brant is hesitant to follow through, in part because “a wife of one of the witnesses works with me.”
She has also advised some involved in the matter that if the other attorney in her office were to attempt to prosecute the case, that attorney “would mortify me,” meaning Brant is apparently having a lack of faith in her office help.
There’s been no suggestion of calling in a special prosecutor to handle the case; according to Lawrence and Richland county sources, the local excuse for a special prosecutor, David Rands, has moved or is moving to the Metro-East area.
Wrecked military career
Suffice it to say, Bush-King was not stopped in 2011, and went on to finally get caught in early 2015….but not before he made a disaster of his time in the Marines.
According to sources contacting Disclosure in the wake of the announcement of charges against Bush-King, the young Marine had “always been a troublemaker.”
Military records made available through the National Archives at St. Louis confirm that Bush-King received a non-judicial punishment (NJD) for being “drunk and disorderly” in the barracks, as well as trying to fight barracks duty personnel, hearkening back to the days of Bush-King’s roughing-up of underclassmen at Flora High School in 2007 as reported to Disclosure at that time by school staff.
But ultimately, Bush-King received an “other than honorable” discharge from the Marines after he tested positive for drugs on a random urinalysis.
While available records don’t show what the urinalysis detected, sources have advised Disclosure that it was the club drug Ecstasy.
Bush-King returned to Flora and began causing the kind of trouble that ultimately landed him where he is now.
Will it go federal?
Speculation has it that the current set of charges might not be the end of the situation with Bush-King, and that because the alleged pornography originated on a cell phone, which uses federal communications utilities to transmit, the entire case might go federal.
Federal child pornography convictions generally carry a 20-year sentence, of which 85 percent must be served.
In the meantime, Bush-King is working his way through Clay County circuit court, having had a previously-scheduled Feb. 23 preliminary hearing moved up to post-deadline date for this issue, March 2, 2015.
A Feb. 17 filing for bond reduction by Elliott fell flat with the judge in the case, Robin Todd, early on (Feb. 9).
Upcoming changes and advancements in the Bush-King case will be covered as carefully by Disclosure as all previous reports have been.