Medal-winning former SC cop charged with sex crimes with minors, officials say
A former South Carolina law enforcement officer who had a long, medal-winning career was arrested and faces multiple charges of sexual assault crimes involving minors, officials say.
For 22 years, Kip Dwayne Teal worked as an officer with four different police departments before serving as deputy coroner at the Spartanburg County Coroner’s Office, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported.
But since March 20, the 50-year-old Lyman resident has been behind bars on six sex abuse charges, jail records show.
Teal has been charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor younger than 11 years old, and three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor 14 to 16 years of age, according to records from the Spartanburg County Detention Center, where the former deputy coroner is being held.
Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said Teal left his office for another issue, resigning over alleged misuse of county property, WHNS reported.
Before leaving the coroner’s office in May 2018, Teal worked for police departments in Duncan, Wellford, Chesnee and Lyman. That is where he served in 2001 when he “received the Medal of Valor from the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association after helping to pull a disabled man from the path of an oncoming train,” the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported.
But a spokesman with the S.C. Attorney General’s Office said from August 2013 until August 2016, Teal was also committing sex assault crimes against minors, according to the newspaper.
The investigation is being led by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, WHNS reported.
No bond was set for Teal on any of the six charges, jail records show. He is also being held on a charge of contempt of family court, according to the detention center.
