Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to clarify where the suspect was employed.
CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio (WCMH) — Police arrested a Canal Winchester sober living apartment’s supervisor on Wednesday, accusing the man of forcing one of his tenants to perform sexual acts on him.
Charles R. Smith Jr., 44, faces a felony charge of rape with threat of force, Franklin County Municipal Court records show. A Columbus Division of Police detective wrote in an affidavit that while Smith lived in Indianapolis, he served as the director of housing for the apartment building where the incident happened.
T&R Properties, the ownership group for the Moors Apartments, told NBC4 on Friday that Smith was an employee of a separate entity called Sober Living America. The nonprofit rented a building in the complex, and Smith specifically supervised a group of tenants recovering from drug and alcohol addiction that SLA brought into the apartments.
Smith was meeting with a woman and another man in the apartment building SLA rented out, according to the affidavit. After the housing director let the other man leave, the female victim told police that Smith began commenting on her appearance. She told him she was uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but Smith stepped in front of the apartment’s door and prevented her from doing so.
The landlord then told Smith she was going to perform a sexual act on him if she wanted to continue living there, the detective wrote in the affidavit. The victim told police that Smith began getting angry and she feared for her safety, so she performed the sexual act on him.
“You took care of me so I’ll take care of you,” Smith reportedly told the victim afterward, stepping away from the door and letting her leave, according to the affidavit.
When police arrested Smith at the apartment building on Wednesday, the detective wrote in his affidavit that the housing director refused to provide a DNA sample to him.
Smith had his arraignment at 9 a.m. Thursday, where a judge ordered him to stay away from the victim and any witnesses, and to not make any threats of violence. The court also banned him from possessing guns or ammunition and from using drugs or alcohol as a condition of his $500,085 bond.
Smith is scheduled to appear next at a preliminary hearing on Nov. 3 at 9 a.m.
