UNION CITY -- Criminal charges and a prison sentence apparently haven't discouraged a former West Side Middle School assistant band director from pursuing an underage female student.
After his most recent release from jail, authorities say Matthew A. Stewart's obsession took a decidedly 21st century path -- he created a new persona on Facebook and "friended" the object of his affections.
As a result, Stewart, 23, is back in the Randolph County jail, preliminarily charged with invasion of privacy.
The Stewart saga in the Randolph County court system began in September 2007, when the Union City man, then 20, was accused of having sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl he met while working as a volunteer with middle school band musicians.
Last week -- after nearly 30 months that have seen Stewart convicted of two felony counts of child solicitation and sentenced to prison, and found guilty of invasion of privacy after he repeatedly had contact, online and off, with the girl in violation of court orders -- the Union City man was arrested again.
Stewart is accused of contacting the now-15-year-old girl yet again, this time by creating a Facebook profile for a teenage girl named "Janie," then sending a "friend request" to the girl, who assumed the invitation came from a fellow high school student.
Once that link was established, authorities said, Stewart began sending the girl text messages that included information about his legal status and their past encounters.
For a brief period on the afternoon of Feb. 26, according to a probable cause affidavit, Stewart exchanged online messages intended for the girl, but actually received by a Union City police officer.
After obtaining a search warrant, Union City police found the phone Stewart used to send the messages hidden under a dishwasher in his kitchen.
His arrest on Feb. 27 came only 40 days after Jay Circuit Court Judge Jay Toney had agreed to allow Stewart to spend the remainder of his sentence for the April 2009 solicitation convictions on house arrest.
At that Jan. 18 hearing, the judge had specifically ordered Stewart to have no contact with the girl, "direct or indirect."
Randolph Eastern school officials have noted that Stewart was a volunteer, never a paid staff member, for the middle school band program, and had no criminal history at the time.
The Union City man was originally charged with two counts of child molesting, a Class B felony with a standard 10-year prison term, over his summer 2007 encounters with the girl, but pleaded guilty to lesser charges as part of a plea agreement.
While awaiting resolution of that criminal case, Stewart was accused of violating court orders by repeatedly contacting the teen online, through MySpace sites, instant messages and chat rooms, at one point asking her to lie, under oath, about whether he had been aware of her age when they had sexual contact.
He was also arrested in a car with the girl in Greenville, Ohio, in November 2008.
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