Article Credit: The Tennessean

Johnthony Walker, the driver in a 2016 Chattanooga bus crash that killed six children, told police in June that he had sex with an 14-year-old girl in Nashville and said he later considered it “repulsive,” according to testimony Thursday.

The testimony, during a preliminary hearing, shed new light on the statutory rape charge filed against Walker, 25, last month by authorities in Nashville.

Walker was convicted earlier this year on six counts of criminally negligent homicide and other charges related to the November 2016 bus crash in Chattanooga. He moved to Nashville to stay with a family here while he was on bond awaiting an appeal.

Then, in June, he was charged with starting a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in that family. The girl’s parents reported the relationship to police.

During his testimony Thursday, Metro Sgt. David Slessinger said Walker admitted to a sexual relationship with the 14-year-old. Walker told police he had sex with the teenager, who was 11 years younger, in the family room while he was on house arrest, Slessinger said.

“He said it happened five times,” Sgt. Slessinger said of Walker’s admission. “He said it was concerning at first, that the age bothered him.

“He said something to the effect of, ‘She’s only a child, just a baby to me, and looking back on it, I find it repulsive.'”

Walker told Slessinger that there might be a photograph from the girl on his phone, according to the sergeant’s testimony.

At Slessinger’s suggestion, Walker also wrote a one-page apology letter to the girl while he was in police custody, the sergeant said.

“I offered him the opportunity to write an apology letter to the victim and he agreed that it was a good idea,” Slessinger said during a cross examination by public defender Keeda Haynes, who represented Walker.

Slessinger said he briefly interviewed the girl and her family, but added “my conversation was short because they were visibly upset.”

If he is found guilty, Walker could face several years behind bars.

In addition to the six counts of criminally negligent homicide, Walker has been found guilty of 11 counts of reckless aggravated assault, seven counts of assault, reckless endangerment and reckless driving in the November 2016 bus crash.

Walker had been sentenced to four years of prison time in the bus crash, but he was legally out on bond and living in Nashville while his attorneys appealed his sentence, according to Melydia Clewell, a spokeswoman for the Hamilton County district attorney.

Walker was able to secure relatively light prison time in the bus crash case because of his status as a first-time offender, Clewell said. A subsequent conviction on a statutory rape charge would likely be met with less lenience from the court.

The judge in Walker’s bus crash case had actually encouraged him to stay somewhere outside Chattanooga because of the number of death threats he was receiving there, Clewell said.

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @tamburintweets.