Former dance instructor enters child molestation plea, will serve up to 9 years in prison

A former Fort Mill dance instructor agreed to a plea on child molestation charges Monday in a York County courtroom and will spend as much as nine years in prison.

Stephen Edgar “Eddie” Mabry, who taught York County children for two decades until his arrest in March and also taught dance at Winthrop University for many years, faces 78 to 108 months in a North Carolina prison after pleading guilty to charges he molested a former student in both North Carolina and South Carolina, prosecutors said.

Mabry touched the boy’s private parts “above and beneath the clothing,” then drank alcohol with the boy and gave the boy money for marijuana in 2008 at the Leroy Springs recreation complex in Fort Mill, where Mabry ran the dance concession when the boy was a minor, 16th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Misti Shelton said in court Monday.

Mabry, 52, pleaded Monday under what is called an Alford plea – where he accepts punishment but does not admit guilt – to charges of lewd act on a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor when the victim was 14 years old. He received time served – a day he spent in jail after arrest – for the offenses from 2008.

But Mabry’s prison time will come from the 20 North Carolina charges he faces for crimes against the boy, who was as young as 7 when the he started as a student under Mabry’s tutelage at Eddie Mabry Talent. Mabry has already signed a written guilty plea in North Carolina and will be sentenced Wednesday in Charlotte, said Mabry’s South Carolina lawyer, John Shiflet.

Mabry made no comment in court Monday except to enter the Alford plea and acknowledge that he will be sentenced Wednesday in Charlotte. He then rushed from the York County courtroom before he could be asked to comment on the admissions of guilt that go back more than 15 years while he supervised hundreds of children.

He is expected to be taken into custody Wednesday after a formal hearing in Charlotte.

The North Carolina charges stem from years of illegal sexual contact and contributing to the delinquency of the child at Mabry’s Huntersville, N.C., home.

Mabry had no criminal record before Monday’s plea. He will have to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison.

The victim did not appear in court Monday.

After Mabry was arrested, Leroy Springs barred him from its property in Fort Mill but allowed the studio, whose employees were not charged in connection with the allegations, to finish the dance year that ended in the summer. Mabry and his company now have no connection with the Fort Mill complex, said Tim Patterson, president and CEO of Leroy Springs & Co.

This story was originally published January 12, 2016 at 7:02 AM with the headline "Former dance instructor enters child molestation plea, will serve up to 9 years in prison."