RALEIGH A 20-year-old teaching assistant at Southeast Raleigh High School was arrested Tuesday on charges of a statutory sexual offense with a 14-year-old boy.
Phillip Jerrod Barham, a Raleigh resident, resigned from his job Wednesday after his arrest. Wake County Schools spokesman Greg Thomas said the 14-year-old was not a student at Southeast Raleigh High School.
Thomas and police spokesman Jim Sughrue said there was no evidence that Barham’s job at the school had anything to do with the incident or how Barham came to know the teenager. Barham was hired by Wake Public Schools last October, Thomas said.
Officers had been called to a disturbance at the residence on the 2700 block of Fox Tail Court on Jan. 19, Sughrue said, where it was determined that a sexual assault had taken place.
Barham was identified as the suspect early in the investigation. The time between the incident and arrest was “needed to develop sufficient probable cause for the arrest,” Sughrue said.
Thomas said that the school system performs extensive background checks on all employees, including state and federal sex offender database checks.