Boone Township school board member, Little League VP arrested on child solicitation charge
A member of the Metropolitan School District of Boone Township who also was on the board of Hebron Little League was arrested Thursday in Goshen on a felony charge of child solicitation after allegedly trying to meet up with a 14-year-old girl named “Payton” who was actually a member of Bikers Against Predators, an organization that goes after alleged child predators.
Shawn Ensign, 47, of Hebron, who began his four-year term on the school board on Jan. 1, 2021, is in custody at the Elkhart County Correctional Complex, where he is being held on a $10,000 surety bond, according to the jail website. He has a May 18 court date.
Representatives of Bikers Against Predators, which is based in Goshen, livestreamed confronting Ensign in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot Thursday afternoon and contacted police, who arrived on the scene during the course of the 26-minute video, which is on the group’s Facebook page.
In a Friday letter to school community, Superintendent Jeff Brooks said that district staff and the school board “are shocked and appalled with the behavior a school board member displayed in a video that has recently become public.”
Ensign was vice president of baseball for Hebron Little League and served on the board for four years before that. By Friday, his name had been removed from the organization’s website. The board voted during an emergency meeting Thursday night to terminate Ensign, according to Austin Hall, the board’s president. A letter was sent out to the league’s families about the matter, though it did not mention Ensign by name.
“We are in shock. He’s on the park board, the school board — he’s always been a huge volunteer around here. We never would have suspected this. I feel for his family,” Hall said, adding child safety is the league’s biggest priority and all volunteers, including Ensign, undergo background checks.
According to a probable cause document, a representative of Bikers Against Predators provided to police a “burner phone” with a text message conversation on the app MeetMe, purportedly between “Payton” and Ensign, who is charged with a Level 5 felony.
“After a few minutes, Ptl. Hershberger advised that she had observed several messages exchanged between the defendant and ‘Payton,’” the document said, going on to note that “Payton” allegedly told Ensign that she was 14 years old.
Ensign reportedly told police he didn’t remember how old “Payton” was and that she did not appear to be younger as her MeetMe profile age was 18 or 19. He said he and “Payton” had been in communication for about a week and that “they talked about cuddling.”
Ensign, according to the document, said he didn’t remember if they talked about anything other than cuddling and were going to meet Thursday to “have coffee, sit in the car and talk.”
In a text message sent May 2, according to the document, Ensign said when the two met they “would start making out, kissing and touching each other. Slowly undressing each other and kissing and nibbling all over each others body.”
Superintendent Brooks, who did not mention Ensign by name in his letter, said the matter is a police investigation that takes precedence over and defines any decision regarding the school board.
Additionally, Brooks noted that school board members are elected officials and not district officials, and referred the community to state statute on impeachment and removal of board officials.
The district, Brooks said, is monitoring the police investigation and consulting with legal counsel and will take action as soon as it is appropriate to do so.
“This single abhorrent situation should not reflect on the people at the MSD of Boone Township who work so hard to create a safe and secure environment for our children,” Brooks said. “We encourage parents to discuss internet safety with their children and endeavor to keep lines of communication open.”
Ensign also served as the nonvoting, school board appointment to the Hebron Park Board.
“The school board is going to have to be the one to act first” about the appointment, said Town Council President John Spinks Jr., who also is the council’s liaison to the park board. “We’re going to do everything we can to protect the children of our town. We have to let the process play out.”
In the video posted to Facebook, a representative from Bikers Against Predators is heard asking a man, reportedly Ensign, “Who are you here to meet today? The 14-year-old girl you’ve been talking to? I got all the messages. What are you doing?”
The man tells the representative that he wants to meet the girl for “giving her a hug” and adds “I was lonely” and goes on to say that she put on the app that she was 18. He continued to message her once he found out her age, he said, because “I was drunk. My bad.”
He said he was sorry and that “it will never happen again,” but the representative from Bikers Against Predators wonders aloud, “How can I believe that?”
The man, wearing a hat, sunglasses, a green plaid shirt and jeans, said he has to go to work and be on his way. He stood by a white SUV, fidgeting with his car keys before he got in his car as the recording continued and the Bikers Against Predators representative tells the man that he called law enforcement.
About 12 minutes into the video, a police officer approaches the man and the representative from Bikers Against Predators backs away, turning the video on himself and asking people watching the video to help identify the man.
The representative notes it’s his organization’s “second catch” in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.
In an interview with the Post-Tribune, the representative, who said he is president of Bikers Against Predators and asked that his name not be revealed, added he started the organization two years ago after a matter involving a family member. He does not have a background in law enforcement.
The organization, which also has worked in Florida, Tennessee and Illinois, as well as across Indiana, has adult women who appear young or do so with filters set up decoy accounts on various social media platforms. The nonprofit collects donations to pay for the burner phones and travel, its president said.
Bikers Against Predators, its president said, operates under “three golden rules.” Its decoys do not message men first; do not initiate sexual discussions; and do not offer to meet the men.
“We let them lead the conversation,” he said of the men who respond to the decoys.
Prosecutors and law enforcement, he added, are not going to publicly say they want citizens to take a stance against child predators. “They’re going to say, ‘Please let law enforcement do their job,’” he said.
Still, the organization works directly with police, providing the burner phones with the messages to the decoys and offering its videos for use in court. “It’s unedited video,” he said.
Bikers Against Predators doesn’t keep track of its convictions, he said, estimating that there have been around 50 or 60.
“It’s not about convictions. It’s about exposure to the community,” he said, adding “98% of them plead out because their attorney tells them, ‘They’ve got a solid case against you.’”
