Crime & Safety
State Rests in Trial of Man Charged with Sexually Abusing Deaf Children
Taylor plans to take the stand in his own defense Friday if a motion of acquittal fails.
The prosecution rested its case Thursday against a Baltimore County man on trial at Howard County Circuit Court for multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor.
Clarence Cepheus Taylor, 38, of Gwynn Oak, is charged with seven counts of sexual abuse of a minor and three counts of soliciting child pornography. At the time of the incidents, August 2008 to June 2010, Taylor worked as an evening-shift dorm aide at the Maryland School for the Deaf, a Columbia boarding school for students with hearing disabilities.
In all, seven victims came forward, all were in middle or elementary school at the time of the incidents.
One of the girls told police that when she was 12 and 13, Taylor would hug her and rub his hand across her breast in the hallway of the dorm.
Two other girls told police Taylor would walk by them and brush his hand inappropriately against them.
Penelope Camp, a Howard County police detective in the family crime and sexual assault unit, testified in the trial that during the questioning of Taylor she never told him the names of the girls, but he provided them to her and additional names, according to Wayne Kirwan, a spokesperson for Howard County police.
On Thursday, the prosecution played the hours long interrogation of Taylor before resting its case. The trial began Oct. 29.
Kirwan said Taylor's defense attorney, Brandon Mead, plans to file a motion for acquittal on Friday. If that fails, Kirwan said Taylor plans to testify in his own defense.
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