Destiny Leadership Academy principal accused of battering a student
The principal of Destiny Leadership Academy, a private school in Ocala, has been arrested on charges of aggravated child abuse and kidnaping/false imprisonment of a child younger than 13. Officials say a school video shows the administrator hitting and choking the boy and twisting his ankle to prevent him from leaving a classroom.
Dontay Akeem Prophet was booked into the Marion County Jail at 3 a.m. May 11, jail records show. He is being held without bail.
A woman at the front desk at the school, 4790 N. U.S. 441, said the school had no comment on the case.
Prophet is a former Marion County School Board candidate. He was arrested in 2019 and accused of lewd/lascivious molestation of a child. Ocala police were told Prophet reportedly had touched a child inappropriately.
Court records show the charge was reduced to attempt to commit interfering with child custody. He was adjudicated guilty and placed on probation in 2023.
While on probation, court records show, he violated the terms of his probation with several infractions, one of which was failure to report in 2023. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Once he was released, probation was re-instated, records showed.
Prophet worked for Marion County Public Schools until he resigned on May 29, 2019. Hired in 2009, Prophet was a behavior technician and paraprofessional, primarily with ESE students at Shady Hill, Ward-Highlands and South Ocala elementary schools and Osceola Middle School.
He was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-February 2019 and resigned a short time later, school officials said.
Surveillance video
In the arrest report in this recent case, Deputy Ronald James Bailey said his agency was contacted by Destiny officials about a disturbance between Prophet, who is the school principal, and a student. The report does not list the student's age, but does suggest he's younger than 13.
The deputy watched the video, which he said showed Prophet approaching the child, who had his head down on a desk.
Prophet tried to get the child's attention by poking and grabbing him. The student pulled away and fell, the report says, and the video then shows Prophet sitting on the child. It then shows Prophet holding the boy in a choke hold and wrapping his legs around him. This prevented the child from leaving the room, according to the video.
The boy is reportedly seen on the video trying to leave multiple times; however, he was stopped by Prophet, who pinned him on the ground, the report says.
The video also shows Prophet grabbing the child's right ankle, twisting it, dropping his knee on the child's leg, slapping his face and hitting his head with a computer charger, according to the report.
The deputy interviewed the child, who was described as scared and shy. The boy said there was an altercation in the classroom and Prophet hit him in the head with the computer charger. The child said his hips hurt and were sore. He declined to say anything else to the deputy, according to the report. The boy's mother said her son did not tell her what happened.
The deputy interviewed Prophet over the phone. Prophet said there was a physical altercation between him and the child due to the boy making suicidal statements. Prophet said he was holding the boy because he was afraid the child would harm himself. He denied hurting the child. Prophet was arrested by the deputy after the interview.
Contact Austin L. Miller at austin.miller@starbanner.com
This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: Ocala police accuse Destiny Leadership Academy principal of child abuse
