Fiancé Of Social Worker Who Had Sex With 13-Year-Old Faced Similar Charges

The fiancé of the social worker accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy she was assigned to counsel had previously faced similar charges.

Nicholas Rafter, 27, shares a child with and is engaged to Payton Shires, 24, who faces charges of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, the Daily Mail reports. Rafter had previously faced charges of rape, sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in relation to an incident involving a 14-year-old girl that took place when he was 19.

The charges against Rafter were dropped after he pleaded guilty to child endangerment. Court documents obtained by the Daily Mail accused Rafter of giving the girl a “drug, intoxicant or controlled substance to her surreptitiously or by force, threat of force, or deception."

Rafter was sentenced to four years and 11 months in jail before being released early on August 2017, at which point he was placed under an intensive supervision parole for five years and subjected to random drug screenings through July 2022. The couple reportedly started dating three years after Rafter's prison sentence and share a 1-year-old son.

Shires, who had previously expressed her support for the death penalty for pedophiles on her social media accounts, was arrested on charges of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor after concerns were raised over text messages shared between the two on October 6, the Columbus Dispatch reported at the time. Shires was held on $500,000 bond, which she posted on October 12, before showing up at the teen's home with a gun, WBNS reported.

The teen's mother was away from the home but noticed a young woman on the porch through doorbell camera footage. Responding officers found Shires sitting with a gun pointed to her head and her finger on the trigger, yelling out threats that she was going to kill herself, according to court records obtained by WBNS.

The teen's mother told police that Shires had called her and threatened to kill both the mother and herself, accusing the woman and her son of ruining her life. The doorbell camera footage went down shortly after the phone call, which the woman claims was because Shires "cut the cameras."

The boy's mother reportedly contacted police on September 27 after discovering the messages and believed "something inappropriate was happening between her son and Ms. Shires after seeing messages asking if he had deleted the videos and asking if his mom had seen the videos or messages," according to the Columbus Police Department. The boy's phone was surrendered to police for a forensic evaluation which found a video of the teen and Shires, who was previously employed by the National Youth Advocate Program (NYAP), which specializes in foster-care families, engaging in sexual conduct.

The boy reportedly told Columbus Police detectives that he and Shires engaged in intercourse at least two times, WSYX reports. On October 5, police conducted a controlled, three-way call in which Shires admitted to the boy's mother that they had engaged in sexual conduct.

Shires' bond was revoked after the latest incident and she will remain jailed until her next court appearance, which is scheduled to take place on November 6.