A Flint, Michigan, man who had spent years in prison for engaging in sex without telling his partners he was infected with HIV will be released on bond less than a year after he was charged with crimes related to his alleged sexual assault of a teenage boy.
John Cole, 55 — who had volunteered on the campaign of Flint Democratic Mayor Sheldon Neeley — was charged last May with 12 counts, including one count of child sexually abusive activity and three counts of accosting a child for immoral purposes. On Monday, Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Celeste D. Bell granted Cole a personal recognizance bond that was requested by his defense attorney, MLive reported.
The judge’s granting of a personal recognizance bond means the Flint man will be released from jail as he awaits trial without paying bail even though he was being held at the Genesee County Jail on a $75,000 cash/surety bond. The judge stipulated that Cole must remain under house arrest and on a tether. Last October, he was ordered to stand trial and bound to circuit court.
Cole was arrested and charged after a 15-year-old boy’s mother told the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office that she believed her son had been sexually assaulted, according to testimony at Cole’s preliminary examination. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson accused Cole of using cunning tactics to befriend a minor at a community event in December 2022 before he later allegedly sexually assaulted the individual.
Then, in February of last year, Cole allegedly picked up the 15-year-old boy to go watch a basketball game, but on their way to the game, Cole “diverted” to a business in Flint and “aggressively started to sexually assault the young victim,” the sheriff said. Cole allegedly assaulted the boy again at a bowling alley a month later.
The Genesee County Sheriff’s Office said that, during its investigation into Cole, it found evidence showing there could be more victims whom Cole allegedly preyed on, but no new charges have been filed in the case, MLive reported. Cole, who was known to use aliases, was previously convicted of not telling partners that he had HIV before engaging in sex with them and served seven years in prison, according to Swanson.
Cole strongly supported Mayor Neeley — now running for a seat in the U.S. House — and had volunteered for his campaign in the past. Photos posted online showed Cole at Neeley’s election night party posing for a picture with the mayor.
At the time of Cole’s arrest last year, Neeley’s office told The Daily Wire that Cole “was known as a member of the community who, like many others, occasionally showed up to volunteer for the mayoral campaign,” adding that he was “never employed by the city of Flint or the Neeley campaign.”
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“Political antagonists may try to embellish this association and make it more than it is,” Neeley’s office added.
“Cole seems to have presented himself as a close associate of the mayor in order to ingratiate himself to other community members, but in reality, he was an incidental acquaintance,” the statement continued. “We are focused on supporting the victims and raising awareness about how to protect the most vulnerable members of our community from these types of abuses.”
