The former First United Methodist Church daycare worker accused of abusing infants in her care was arraigned on a total of 30 counts included in a recently issued superseding indictment Wednesday morning in Christian Circuit Court.
The new indictment against 24-year old Allison Simpson was handed down by a Christian County Grand Jury on December 6 and all 30 counts are alleged to have happened between December 19 of last year and January 18 of this year.
Eleven of the counts are against the same victim and a total of eight children are listed as victims in all of the allegations.
All of the counts allege Simpson placed the victims “in a situation that may cause serious physical injury, causing torture, cruel confinement or cruel punishment.”
Simpson’s attorney waived formal arraignment Wednesday morning and scheduled her next hearing to coincide with another recently indicted co-defendant, 52-year old Nina Morgan. She’s facing two counts of first-degree child abuse against one victim on January 5 and 16 of this year.
The allegations on her true bill are identical to Simpson’s.
Morgan was indicted December 6, booked in the Christian County Jail three days later and released on bail.
She was arraigned December 11 in Christian Circuit Court.
Morgan and Simpson are set to appear for a pre-trial conference on January 29. Hearings for former church daycare director Abby Leach and former church pastor Paige Williams that had been scheduled for Wednesday were continued until that same date.
Indictments against Rev. Williams and Leach allege they ‘intentionally breached their legal duty to protect’ seven children under the age of 13 months by failing to prevent Simpson from intentionally abusing those children.
Nina Morgan