Larger bond, more jail time for Hoskins

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A former Grand Rapids Public Schools employee is facing more trouble after being caught with one of the underage victims in a sex scandal for which he has yet to face trial.

Kenneth Hoskins Jr., 32, was in court again Monday morning for allegedly violating a condition of his bond -- to stay away from the two underage girls he is accused of having sex with while he was a GRPS student advocate.

An arrest warrant alleges Hoskins was seen at the Brickcrete Motel on South Division Avenue last week with one of the alleged victims.

Hoskins' attorney, John Beason, tried to argue that the woman in the motel last Tuesday wasn't one of the 16-year-old victims.

But Judge Dennis Lieber was convinced otherwise by testimony of a Wyoming police officer. The officer said Grand Rapids detectives, who had been following Hoskins, asked him to check a room at the motel that Hoskins had rented to see if a young woman was with him.

The officer said Hoskins, at first, answered the door wearing a T-shirt and closed it again, saying he wanted to get dressed. Hoskins later let the officer inside where he found a young woman apparently hiding in the shower.

"Standing in the shower with the shower curtain closed. I asked her what she was doing, she said nothing. I said, 'Do you mind stepping outside and talking to me?' She walked out with me. I asked her what her name was and she says, 'Latoya Johnson,' " officer Ben Durian testified.

But that wasn't the girl's name.

Officer Durian said the young woman made a run for it.

The next day, he saw the same girl in juvenile detention and identified her as the girl hiding in the motel room shower.

Hoskins has to give up the $50,000 bond that was put up by his grandmother, Beason said. She will lose about $5,000.

Lieber gave Hoskins a new, much larger bond -- $250,000 -- which Beason says Hoskins' family probably can't afford, meaning Hoskins will stay in jail until his Jan. 11 trial.