HUNTERSVILLE -- A Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle school teacher has been arrested and charged with raping a 15-year-old girl.

Ernest Nichols, 44, of Huntersville, made his first appearance in court Friday.

He faces 27 charges – including multiple offenses of rape, second-degree sex offense, crime against nature, indecent liberties with children, and kidnapping. He’s being held in the Mecklenburg County jail on $810,000 bond.

During Friday’s brief court appearance, a bond hearing for Nichols was set for Oct. 14.

Police say the charges against Nichols stem from a series of incidents over a six-month period from late 2008 until April or May.

Nichols has been a physical education teacher at Ranson Middle School since 2004, but Huntersville police say the victim was not a student at the school and the attacks happened at Nichols’ home on Willow Grove Way.

"It actually had nothing to do with his job at the school," said Lt. Ken Richardson of the Huntersville police.

It is the third time in six months that a CMS teacher has been charged with sex crimes involving a teen.

Richardson said the Nichols’ alleged victim was a friend of the family.

Nichols has not commented on the charges. A note posted on the front door of the family’s house in Huntersville advised people not to knock on the door, warning that police would be called if the residents were bothered. Phone calls to the house went unanswered.

Richardson said the alleged attacks took place over a period of about six months, from last November until this spring. He said the girl, who was 15 when the alleged assaults took place but is now 16, did not come to police until Wednesday.

"She spoke to someone who advised her to come to police," Richardson said. "In this type of case, that’s not unusual. The victim often thinks it was her fault, or that what happened was not wrong."

Huntersville police got a search warrant, and detectives went through Nichols’ house Thursday. Richardson said Nichols was contacted and told to come to the house, where he was taken into custody.

"Our search confirmed some of what the victim had told us we might find (in the house)," Richardson said.

Detectives confiscated computers and other items from the house, and Richardson said the investigation is ongoing.

Kathleen Johansen, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, said Nichols has been suspended with pay, pending the outcome of his case. She said Nichols was hired by CMS in 1991 and worked at several schools, including North Mecklenburg High and South Mecklenburg High, before moving to Ranson Middle five years ago.

CMS recently started conducting random criminal-background checks on employees, and Nichols had been checked, Johansen said. She said the checks turned up charges in the early 1980s, related to check-writing, but officials decided that did not affect his ability to teacher. There was no history of sex offenses, Johansen said.

On Sept. 15, another CMS teacher, John Patrick Bush, 27, was charged with first-degree rape of a victim under 13. That alleged incident took place Sept. 1 at Smith Language Academy, a magnet school where Bush teaches. Police say the victim told her parents about the incident.

Bush, a math teacher at Smith since January 2007, was released on bond and is awaiting trial. He is suspended with pay, pending outcome of the legal proceedings.

And on June 11, Richard Priode, 44, was charged by CMPD with indecent liberties with a minor. Priode taught last year at Sullivan Middle School in Rock Hill, but the alleged incident took place in 2007, when Priode was band teacher at South Mecklenburg High School. He taught for two years at South Mecklenburg before leaving for Rock Hill at the start of the 2008-09 academic year.

CMS officials say they conducted thorough background checks on both Bush and Priode before they were hired.

The Observer’s Maria David contributed.

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