MONROE, N.C. — A middle school basketball coach and group home worker turned himself in to police Friday on accusations he sent inappropriate text messages to children.
Investigators said they are looking into 20,000 text messages Raymond Nixon sent to children in his care.
Nixon is suspended pending an internal investigation from his job as a part-time staff worker at a group home for troubled and developmentally challenged children.
Police said that is where he met a teenage boy who he sent text messages soliciting sex.
“No indication that he ever acted upon anything,” Detective Shannon Huntley said.
Huntley said she looked at all 20,000 of the text messages.
“He loves kids. He took his job personally,” Huntley said.
But she said he got too close to at least one of them.
She said there is no indication the former basketball coach at Union Academy and former assistant teacher at Parkwood Middle School sent racy messages to students at either of those schools.
Still, Union County Schools fired him Friday. Union Academy fired him last month.
Eyewitness News went to Nixon's home in Monroe. He wasn't there, but a man who identified himself as Nixon's father spoke with Channel 9.
“That was a shock to me,” Ray Cureton said.
He said his son was very involved in his church and he took pride in working with children. He said the charge does not reflect the man he knows.
“I really don't believe it,” Cureton said. "I hope the truth come out, and I hope he ain't guilty, but I just don't know."
WSOC
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