Marion County Substitute Teacher and Volunteer Trainer Arrested for Alleged Encounter With 15 Year Old Student Athlete

A former Marion County substitute teacher and volunteer trainer is behind bars... Charged with aggravated statutory rape and solicitation of a minor.

Forty-seven year old Jack Clinton Owens sits in the Marion County Justice Center on a $250K bond after an alleged encounter with a 15 year old student athlete.

Owens is charged with 5 felony counts including statutory rape by an authority figure, exploitation of a minor by electronic means and carrying a weapon on school property.

Marion County Chief Det. Gene Hargis says, "Through various means a meeting was set up and Mr. Owens showed up at the meeting point. He was arrested at that point in time."

Authorities were notified Thursday by the victim's family after explicit text messaged were discovered on the student's phone.

Hargis says, "Some of these text messages began to be of a sexual, explicit nature. We at that point in time took over the texting as part of the investigation."

The arrest took place late Thursday after detectives arraigned a meeting at Marion County High School.

Owens thought he was meeting the student... the meeting was not what he bargained for.

Marion County Superintendent Mark Griffith says, "From the Marion Co. Board of Education standpoint we've already handled everything that we needed to as far as employment and volunteer training...that status has been revoked. Thoughts and prayers go out to the families involved and, you know, we'll let the law enforcement and the courts handle it from here."

Grandview Medical Center CEO Dan Aranda says, "The bottom line is he will be let go."

The married father of four had been a paramedic at Grandview Medical Center for five years.

Aranda called his arrest a shock, "We do take this obviously quite seriously and we're doing everything we can to work with law enforcement. Because it is a criminal investigation we can't comment very much. But we're very distressed."

Detectives believe the frist encounter happened two weeks ago on school property.

Owens is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.

Both Grandview Medical Center and Marion County Schools say they perform background checks during the hiring process.