NC tennis pro faced child sex crime allegations decades before latest charges
A Lake Norman-area tennis professional who was recently charged with child sex crimes faced similar charges decades ago, and the club he worked for was warned about his history.
Stephen Montgomery Kerlew, 64, worked at Westport Swim & Tennis Club in Denver before Lincoln County deputies arrested him on June 5.
Westport fired Kerlew and barred him from the property after receiving a report about him, according to a June 8 email the club sent to its members. That email added that the club is assisting investigators.
Kerlew faced similar child sex charges in the early 2000s, according to court and law enforcement records filed in Florida. An area newspaper reported that he took a plea deal.
For five years, since April 2021, he has been barred from participating in contests and other events organized by the United States Tennis Association.
The club’s owner, Willie Dann, said he is horrified by what has happened recently and regrets ever hiring Kerlew. Dann said that he asked the sheriff’s office to look into Kerlew before and was reassured about him. An official pushed back on that version of events.
Kerlew is in Lincoln County’s jail without bond and has no attorney listed in court records. The Observer could not reach him for comment.
What records say
Kerlew faced a long list of charges in the early 2000s in Florida’s Palm Beach County, according to the local court clerk’s office.
That office said that, in 2001, he was charged with sexual activity with a child, soliciting sexual activity with a child, neglect of a child and four counts of lewd and lascivious battery.
He pleaded guilty to neglect, according to the clerk’s office. The rest of his charges were dismissed.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement records also confirm that Kerlew was charged with child sex crimes, and a local newspaper reported on him.
In a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in September 2002 to child neglect and admitted that he allowed two “mentally disabled” teenagers to have sex in his house, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
In exchange for admitting to the exploitation charge, prosecutors dropped sex-related charges against Kerlew, according to the newspaper.
He had been accused of having sex with two female residents at a group home where he worked, according to the Sun Sentinel’s reporting, but prosecutors said that one of them ran away and the other was unavailable to testify.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is aware of Kerlew’s past charges in Florida but not any case details, the agency said in an email to the Observer this week.
Flagged by two sports groups, another pro
Kerlew’s 2021 ban from participating in some sports events came after the U.S. Center for SafeSport investigated and found a criminal disposition “involving a minor,” according to a database the center maintains.
To protect the integrity of the investigative process, the center does not comment on specific investigations, spokesperson Allyson Neville said.
In January 2023, another tennis pro working at a Lake Norman-area club emailed Dann and warned him about Kerlew’s record in Florida.
“I highly suggest investigating this further as it is a huge liability for the club if this is, in fact, the correct information,” the email said.
The sender included a BeenVerified background check on Kerlew that included some of the Florida charges.
The email did not give Dann any information he did not already have, he said.
In a phone interview Friday, Dann said he hired Kerlew sometime around 2016 and learned about his case years later, which prompted him to reach out to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.
“I did call the Lincoln County detective when I had concerns, had met with him at my house, told him my concerns. And he talked to (Kerlew), told me he talked to him, and that there was no issues — and that it was fine,” Dann recalled.
Chief Deputy Matt Lykins said that an internal record shows that the sheriff’s office in 2020 briefly investigated “random” emails that Westport received about Kerlew and his old charges. Ultimately, investigators were not able to trace where the emails originated, and that investigation was dropped.
“Being that we couldn’t even verify we had a victim, this ain’t a prank call, this ain’t nothing — that’s where we ended it out because we had no case. We had no victim,” the chief deputy said. “I mean, we let him know that we had to close the case out, but it doesn’t say in (the sheriff’s office’s record) that we told him anything like, ‘Oh, this is a good dude,’ or anything like that. Because that’s not what we were investigating.”
Club owner: ‘I’m horrified’
Dann said that when he confronted Kerlew about his prior charges, the pro told him he had just been “caught up in the whole situation” with a prosecutor who was “gonna… go after everybody.”
Before Kerlew came to Westport, he worked at a high-end country club for over four years, Dann said, and people who worked with him there vouched for him.
“I was told there was no issues at all,” he said.
Now, after all that has happened, he said he wishes he had never hired him.
“Everybody’s hindsight is 20/20,” Dann said. “Now, knowing what I know, I’m horrified. I feel for the victim. I regret hiring him — you know? After the fact, absolutely. I believe in giving people second chances, but in light of what happened, I am horrified. I wish I never would have hired him. I beat myself up every single day.”