(From the Detroit News 7/6/06)

Police: Ex-teacher didn't use underage girls in online photos

Investigators found no sexual wrongdoing by Waterford man, but he still faces drug charges.

Joe Menard / The Detroit News
WATERFORD TOWNSHIP -- None of the dozens of girls a 43-year-old Waterford man photographed nude and posted on Web sites was a minor, police said.

Police have wrapped up their investigation against former music teacher Jeffrey Scott Myers without any evidence of sexual wrongdoing.

However, Myers has been charged with giving a 17-year-old Saline woman alcohol and possessing 11 tablets of the club drug Ecstasy.

"As far as we know, there aren't any underage" girls in the photos, said Deborah Carley, Oakland County Chief Deputy Prosecutor.

Myers was arraigned this week on a misdemeanor count of distributing alcohol to a minor and a felony count of possession with intent to deliver ecstasy. A preliminary exam conference has been set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 51st District Court.

Myers was arrested after an April 13 raid on his rented home by the Waterford Special Operation Unit, which had been investigating him for a month. Police say they found him in bed with a 17-year-old Saline girl who had been drinking. Police seized computers, pictures and photography equipment.

Sgt. Todd Hasselbach of the Waterford Township Police Department said there was no evidence that the 17-year-old had been photographed.

Myers used the popular social networking site MySpace.com to find young women to act as nude models, police said, and he offered them modeling contracts and promised they would make thousands of dollars. He would photograph the girls in his home, post the photos on Web sites and collect money from patrons who viewed the images, police said.

"It's a strange case," Carley said. "The Internet is such a wonderful thing and such a bad thing at the same time."

Myers is the founder of the Southeast Michigan Arts Conservatory, later renamed the Southeast Michigan Arts Center, in Canton Township. The private music, drama and dance school at one time had 700 youngsters before going bankrupt several years ago.