Ex-teacher who fled with teen appears in courtroom
Twenty days after he was arrested in a Northern California forest after a nationwide manhunt, Tad Cummins made his first court appearance in Tennessee on Tuesday.
His feet tethered by chains, Cummins shuffled into a federal courtroom in Nashville carrying a few pieces of paper. He gave a tight-lipped smile to three family members seated in the second row, who returned the gesture with waves and blew kisses.
“Yes, ma’am,” the 50-year-old man replied quietly each time U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes asked if he knew his right to have a lawyer and to remain silent.
Seated next to his lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Dumaka Shabazz, Cummins listened as Holmes read the possible penalties he’s facing on a charge he took a former student from Columbia, Tenn., to California.
Those penalties include a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence and fines of about $250,000, according to Holmes.
Did he understand?
“Yes, ma’am,” Cummins told Holmes.
‘FLIGHT ACROSS THE CONTINENT’
Cummins will be held in custody at least until a 1 p.m. Friday hearing.
Then a federal judge will determine if there is probable cause to charge Cummins in the case and whether he should remain in jail until trial.
The former Columbia, Tenn., teacher was initially charged April 20 with a federal crime of knowingly transporting a minor in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in sexual activity.
Cummins has not yet been indicted and could face more charges.
Authorities say he manipulated his former student, 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas, and left with her. An Amber Alert was issued, drawing national attention to the case before a citizen’s tip led law enforcement agents to Cummins and the teen in California.
Nashville-based assistant U.S. attorneys Sara Beth Myers and Philip H. Wehby say in a court filing that Cummins’ proven track record of fleeing means he should stay in jail before trial.
“The evidence supporting defendant’s risk of flight and danger to the community is overwhelming,” they wrote in a motion filed Tuesday. “Defendant did not merely flee with the victim — he took numerous measures to conceal both his and his victim’s location throughout the course of his flight across the continent.”
Those measures included disposing of his and Elizabeth’s cellphones, disconnecting satellite radio to prohibit the use of GPS tracking and replacing his license plate with stolen ones, according to prosecutors.