Filipino teacher in Illinois arrested for soliciting sex from minor

(A previous version of this report incorrectly stated that Ridgewood Baptist Church in Joliet, Illinois, runs the Trinity  Christian School where grooming suspect Lemuel Elechicon, who was charged but has not been convicted, taught for 12 years. While Elechicon wrote on his website that he worked with youth members of the Ridgewood Baptist Church (four years ago), the church does not run Trinity Christian School as was wrongly reported and is separate from it. Ridgewood Baptist Church does not have a school. We apologize to the Ridgewood Baptist Church for the error.)

Lemuel Elechicon. WILL COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEP’T

CHICAGO–A science teacher at Trinity Christian School is out on $100,000 bond after he was charged April 14 with one felony count of grooming.

Grooming is a felony crime in which someone uses electronic means to solicit sexual activity from a minor.

Lemuel Elechicon of Crest Hill, Illinois, posted bail and was released from Will County Jail a day after he was charged of inappropriately texting a 13-year old school girl.

The parents of the students alerted the Shorewood Police Department to the alarming texts Elechicon had sent to their daughter since January. A parent of another student informed the couple of the texts.

The case is under the jurisdiction of the Shorewood Police Department.

Elechicon,51, came from the Philippines when he was 12 years old. The Joliet Patch reported that he taught science class with a curriculum revolving around the Bible-based creationism.

He was graduated from a Bible school in Iowa and has been teaching for 26 years—with the past 12 years at Trinity Christian School in a Chicago suburb. The school board chairman, Frederick Alexander announced that Elechicon was placed on administrative leave pending resolution of his case.

His teacher’s website is reported to have posted, among other things–“By faith, Christ saved me from my sins when I was in high school,” Elechicon said on his page.

On what he teaches: “You will learn a solid creation-based worldview and that, contrary to popular belief, operational science runs counter to the idea of evolution and ‘millions of years,’” Elechicon says of his creationism curriculum. “The facts of nature, rightly interpreted, provide an irrefutable case for the accuracy and trustworthiness of the book that claims to be the inspired word of the Creator Himself!”