Allen University professor, ex-USC instructor charged with sexual battery of child
An Allen University professor and former instructor at the University of South Carolina was charged Oct. 6 with molesting a child, according to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
Lexington deputies charged Michael Alan Lane with three counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor 11 years old or younger.
Lane assaulted a young girl on three separate occasions between November 2018 and 2019, according to warrants.
Deputies jailed Lane at the Lexington County Detention Center, where he remained Thursday afternoon awaiting a bond hearing.
Carolina News and Reporter, a news organization produced by senior students in USC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, first broke the news about the charges against Lane.
Lane is the chair of the mathematics department at Allen University, according to his profile on Linkedin, a job related social media site. The South Carolina Independent Colleges and University organization recognized Lane with an excellence in teaching awards for 2020. The organization’s biography of Lane said he joined Allen’s faculty in 2015 and became chair of the math department in 2019.
The State could not reach Allen University for comment. But an Allen spokesperson told Carolina News and Reporter that Lane “is on leave and beyond that, we have no further comment.”
Lane was teaching three math classes at USC this semester but was fired immediately after his charges, a school spokesperson said. The classes were assigned to other instructors. Lane was a part-time instructor in the Department of Mathematics, according to archived captures of USC’s website.
