When a 53 year-old Roswell city councilman arrived at Northlake Mall on Thursday, he expected to meet the teenage girl he’d had a sexual relationship with for four years, since she was 13, DeKalb County Police said.
Instead, Kent Igleheart was met by officers who had controlled the girl’s phone since Oct. 15, after the teen confided in her mother about the relationship.
Igleheart and the girl had chatted on the app Kik, according to a warrant, where Igleheart had asked the girl to send him photos of her breasts, genitals and buttocks.
He told her he had feelings for her, the warrant said. He talked to her about masturbation and how her breasts had grown over time.
Igleheart was arrested and charged with sexual exploitation of a child, enticing a child for indecent purposes and furnishing alcohol to a minor, police said. The first two charges are felonies. Bond was set Friday at $30,000 with the condition that he have no further contact with the girl, according to Channel 2 Action News.
After years of exchanging the explicit messages and nude photos, police say Igleheart had sexual contact with the teenager for the first time earlier this year. He had rented a hotel room at the Days Inn on Northlake Parkway to meet up with her Thursday, police said.
“He believed he was meeting with the 17-year-old,” DeKalb police Maj. Stephen Fore said.
Janet Russell, a Roswell resident who said she has been attending council meetings since Igleheart was first elected, said council members and others she had talked to Friday were “flabbergasted” by the arrest.
“People were shocked,” she said. “This was not Mr. Gadabout. He’s just kind of a quiet guy.”
Search warrants were served Thursday at the Days Inn hotel room and at Igleheart’s home, and Friday at the Roswell city hall, Fore said.
“We think there’s a good probability that there are other victims out there,” Fore said. “Because of the length of time of this relationship, there’s a good probability that he tried to engage in other activity with others.”
Fore said he did not know how Igleheart had first come to know the girl, who lives in DeKalb County.
No one returned a message left at Igleheart’s home Friday. City councilman Donald Horton said he didn’t have any details about the arrest and didn’t “want to comment on anything.” Other members of Roswell’s city council could not be reached.
Roswell spokeswoman Julie Brechbill said she was aware of the arrest, but had no comment.
“We just don’t have enough information at this point,” Brechbill said.
Igleheart was first elected to Roswell’s city council in 2001.
Igleheart, an actor and consultant whose city biography says he has appeared in more than 60 movies, TV shows, commercials and training videos, received praise for a short film he wrote, produced and directed last year about homeless LGBT teenagers. The film, Unconditional, was nominated for best short at the Gwinnett International Film Festival and won the audience award for Best Men’s Short at Atlanta’s Out on Film festival. It helped raise money for Lost-n-Found, a LGBT-focused homeless shelter.
Igleheart, a 1981 Clarkston High graduate and son of a retired Southern Baptist minister, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year that he "thought that this was a story that had to be told."
“I also had a long-standing desire to tackle the whole issue of LGBT and religion,” he said. “I want to create films that make people feel strong emotions and think deeply. People often think of LGBT-religion issues as ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ The only way to humanize things is to show real people involved.”
Before getting into acting, Igleheart owned an environmental consulting firm. He was the Executive Director of Scenic Georgia and on the boards of the Georgia River Network and the Chattahoochee Nature Center. A graduate of Furman University, he was named to Georgia Trend magazine’s “40 Under 40,” his bio said.
His city council term ends Dec. 31, 2017.
Roswell’s city charter says an elected official shall forfeit his office, among other reasons, if he is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Additionally, removal of Igleheart from his council seat can happen if two-thirds of council members initiate the removal. The council would need to vote unanimously to remove Igleheart, though he would not get a vote.
Russell, the Roswell resident, said she had seen Igleheart and his wife at an Oktoberfest-themed neighborhood party last weekend, and the couple appeared to be having fun. As a member of city council, Russell said, Igleheart is a good listener and governs well. Residents thought well of him, she said.
“Not knowing the details, when we first heard the report, the initial response from several people was that he was set up. That’s how shocked we were,” she said. “I’m just stunned because I’ve sat in on Kent’s decision-making for years. …I just have to think, what the hell was he thinking?”
