The two sections above are taken from the 2000 ARBCA Reports. It is clear Tom Chantry had major issues and was unfit for ministry or any type of work that placed him in close proximity to children. If you were to ask me what is the one occupation Chantry should never be involved in, I would reply a grade school teacher. Yet a mere two years removed from the disaster of sexual and physical abuse Chantry had created at Miller Valley Baptist Church, he began teaching 5th graders at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL. Tom Lyon, pictured below, was the pastor put in charge of the oversight of Tom Chantry. Chantry arguably never met the conditions he had agreed to in December, 2000, yet one year after arriving at Lyon’s church Tom Lyon had him regularly preaching from the pulpit of Providence Reformed Baptist Church. Then in 2002 Lyon bid Tom farewell as he sent him on his unrepentant way to teach grade schoolers in Chicago! What could Mr. Lyon possibly have been thinking? He had the complete knowledge of what Tom Chantry had done to children in Prescott, AZ. He saw the letters which stated Chantry severly beat children, spanked them with their pants down so he could see their butts turn red, had them sit on his lap as he rubbed their butts (and we later learned genitals) and then forced the children to hug him. And yet, unbelievably Mr. Tom Lyon sent Chantry the wolf out to teach elementary school children. Why Mr. Lyon? What kind of sick mind would have no qualms about doing this?
When I first began began investigating Chantry’s crimes I quickly realized the guy was a pedophile. We all know pedophiles never stop doing their evil deeds (I am using the generic “all” even though ARBCA leaders apparently had no clue.) I wrote a letter at that time to Christian Liberty Academy, advising them of the credible charges against Tom Chantry and suggesting they write a letter to every parent of a child who had been in Chantry’s classes. I received no response. Not even an acknowledgment of having received my emai. I found this strange as well.
Brent Detwiler also wrote an email to Christian Liberty Academy staff and, like me received no response.
Chantry testified on the witness stand that his father Walt and Phil Bennett (at the time Headmaster of the school) were good friends. He said that prior to his employment at CLA Headmaster Bennett had seen all his paperwork. (Like everything else Chantry said on the stand, I found this hard to believe.) But then when I found out the fact stated below in a comment on the Wartburg Watch, I thought maybe there was a possibility Phil Bennett did have all the facts on Chantry’s actions in Arizona and hired him anyway. Would a Headmaster be so reckless? One would like to think not, but who knows?
It looks like the Bennett family have all been ponying up to the watering trough of Christian Liberty Academy. Nepotism to this extent rarely makes good business sense and it didn’t surprise me to find out that Chantry was not the only criminal to have been on staff of CLA. At the end of this article you will find the story of a man who ripped the school off to the tune of nearly $300K!
Below is the Police Report from an incident where Tom the Terror spanked a five year-old boy so hard that he had marks two days later. Unfortunately the parents did not want to press charges and I have no doubts that Tom the Terror abused more young boys between the years 2004-2016 because, as I said, pedophiles never stop being pedophiles.
2004 Police Report of Thomas Chantry spanking incident at Christian Liberty Academy by Todd Wilhelm on Scribd
It seems Thomas Chantry is not the only criminal who was employed by Christian Liberty Academy! You can read the story here.
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