Grain Valley officer charged with raping child, including at middle school parking lot
Correction: The story has been updated to reflect that August P. Gildehaus is still employed with the Grain Valley Police Department.
A Grain Valley police officer who admitted to sex crimes with a child he met online has been charged with multiple felonies, including statutory rape.
August P. Gildehaus, 27, was charged Tuesday with one count of first-degree sodomy or attempted sodomy, one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, four counts of second-degree statutory sodomy and three counts of second-degree statutory rape, according to charging documents from the Jackson County Prosecutors Office.
The officer is currently on paid administrative lead, the city of Grain Valley said in a statement Wednesday morning.
On March 6, Grain Valley Police Chief Ed Turner asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate allegations of an officer committing sex crimes against a child, whose gender was redacted from the probable cause statement to protect their identity.
The day before, at about 1:30 a.m., the Grain Valley Police Department received a report of a child under the age of 17 who was missing from home, court records show.
Police took a missing person report, but were contacted again by the family about five hours later. When the child returned home, they told their parents they had met adult men online using Omegle and Discord, according to court records. One of the men, the child told their parents, who reported the accusations to police, was a Grain Valley Police officer who identified online as Austin Sims.
During a forensic interview in early April at Children’s Mercy Hospital’s Child Protection Center, the child described tattoos they saw on the man who they said raped them, including one of the skyline that matched a tattoo on Gildehaus’ arm, according to charging documents. The child also knew his birthday and the name of one of his children.
Police at that point believed Gildehaus was using an alias to talk to the victim online.
The child said that over the course of several months in late 2022 and early 2023, Gildehaus on multiple occassions picked them up near their house in his white pickup truck and took them to the parking lot of Grain Valley South Middle School or the parking lot near his own home, and then committed sex crimes, according to court records. Once, the child said, Gildehaus forced the victim to have anal sex. After, the child later told police, they were in pain and bleeding.
The child said Gildehaus also sent them a video of one of the crimes afterwards through Discord, court records show. Authorities later confirmed this by looking through the child’s Discord conversations.
Those conversations also showed the child told Gildehaus that they were younger than 17, and that child pornography was also exchanged.
The child also gave their diary to law enforcement to review. Several entries described Gildehaus taking them to the parking lot of the middle school to have sex, according to charging documents.
Authorities interviewed Gildehaus on April 7, court records show. He told them that he recently covered up the tattoo on his arm, which was of the skyline in Kostroma, Russia, and replaced it with a wolf.
Gildehaus also admitted that he met the victim on Omegle and then talked to the child through Discord, according to charging documents. He said he knew the child was underage, and that “he engaged in conversation that were sexual in nature.”
He also confirmed that he drives a white 2002 Chevrolet pickup truck and that he used Austin Sims online as an alias, according to court records. Gildehaus admitted to meeting the child four times to have illegal sex, and that he once filmed it, then sent it to the victim.
Grain Valley city officials issued a statement on the case Wednesday.
“We are committed to the oaths of office for law enforcement officers as well as the standards the citizens of Grain Valley expect from our department,” the city said in their statement. “We recognize the alleged crime is sensitive in nature and acknowledge the pain this can bring to individual families as well as the community as a whole.”
No attorney was listed for Gildehaus as of Wednesday morning.
