Georgia pastor outed by cops after he met male prostitute and got robbed, slapped with 'sodomy' charges
MACON, GEORGIA: A Georgia police department publicly outed a gay robbery victim who had told his friends and family he had been kidnapped to hide that he had set up a meeting with a male sex worker he contacted online.
Christopher Keys, of Macon, Georgia, had called the Bibb County Sheriff's Office for help regarding an armed robbery on May 19, with deputies meeting him at 4951 Eisenhower Parkway, Regency Inn & Suites, according to a police press release. When they arrived, Keys told them that he had been at the motel when he heard a knock on his room door. When he opened the door, two masked men, one of whom was armed, robbed him of his wallet, house, truck, and work keys, and a cell phone. He told them that he had responded to an ad on Craigslist and was to meet a man in room in the motel.
When an investigation revealed he had been a frequent visitor to the Regency Inn & Suites since January, Keys told deputies that he did not want the fact that he was gay to get out and that he did not want them talking to his family. He said he was planning to tell his father he had been kidnapped at another location and brought to the motel. However, detectives did not heed his wishes, and instead, announced publicly on Facebook that, based on information they had discovered during their investigation, they would be arresting Keys and charging him with solicitation of sodomy.
Pink News reported that Georgia is one of 16 states which still has sodomy laws against "perverted sexual practice" even though the Supreme Court had ruled in 2003 that prohibiting private same-sex activity between consenting adults was unconstitutional. Police, however, said they had released the information after receiving a "rumor" about carjacking and kidnapping that occurred on May 20, 2020, at 1615 Forest Hill Drive, CVS Pharmacy, and wanted to clarify that no such incident had occurred to ease tensions in the community.
That rumor appeared to be circulating because of a Facebook post by one of Keys' neighbors, Cathy Hackle, who claimed he had been coming out of the pharmacy when two other men held him at gunpoint, drove him to the motel and robbed him of his phone and around $70 cash. She later clarified that she had heard the story about the robbery from her daughter. The Macon Telegraph reported that Keys, 56, was listed as a Bible studies teacher at a local religious school, Tattnall Square Academy, until recently but that his name no longer appeared on the website.
Alyssa Huntt, the director of communications and public relations at Tattnall Square Academy, confirmed in an email that Keys was a former teacher but declined to say in what capacity he taught and for how long. "Tattnall Square Academy was only recently made aware of the charges against our former employee, Christopher Keys," she said. "We have no comment or information regarding the matter about which he is accused."