A former teacher at the Gilman School who’s accused of sexually abusing a student, recording explicit videos and threatening to expose nude images could take the stand on Wednesday in his own defense.
U.S. Senior District Judge James K. Bredar on Tuesday started to advise Chris Bendann of his right to testify or remain silent. He did not make a final decision.
“Your honor,” Bendann said, “I’ve been advised to let you know I’ll sleep on it.”
Bendann, 40, of Baltimore, is charged in U.S. District Court in Baltimore with sexual exploitation of a child, possession of child pornography and cyberstalking. He worked at the Gilman School, a private, independent all-boys school in Roland Park from 2007 to 2023.
He first raised the possibility that he could testify before jury selection. Bendann initially refused to leave his cell at the Chesapeake Detention Facility but relented after the judge directed the U.S. Marshals Service to deliver instructions that he must appear.
When Bredar explained the right to testify at trial, Bendann replied, “I will be doing that, your honor.” Though he also vowed to skip parts of his trial, he has showed up every day.
The possibility that he could testify came up for a second time before lunch.
Bendann’s attorneys, Christopher Nieto and Gary Proctor, have argued that their client was in a consensual adult relationship with the student after he turned 18 and disputed that eight videos that federal prosecutors have played to the jury are child sexual abuse material.
“Mr. Bendann should be able to tell his story to the jury,” Proctor said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen McGuinn shot back that Bendann should not be allowed to “willy-nilly” argue that he was in a “love affair.”
“Age is not a defense when you film it,” McGuinn said. “There is no defense to consenting to child pornography.”
Bredar said the right to present a defense is a “powerful one in our system and one we don’t intrude on lightly.”
But Bredar warned Bendann that, if he testifies or implies that any sexual activity involving a minor was consensual, he will be admonished in front of the jury.
Prosecutors rested their case after putting on six more witnesses, including three alumni of the Gilman School who testified that Bendann would text students, add them on Instagram and Snapchat and take them to dinner and the movies. They also recounted how he would drive children to Meadowood Regional Park or a hill at the St. Paul’s Schools to run laps naked.
One alumnus testified that Bendann checked on him during spring break in 2018 when he was home sick. His family was traveling.
When the alumnus got out of the shower, he testified, Bendann was lying on the bed, waiting for him, and stated, “Let’s wrestle.”
Bendann, the alumnus testified, twice yanked at his towel and almost ripped it in half. He yelled.
“He just got very quiet and left the room,” the alumnus testified.
Later, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron Zelinsky and Spencer Todd read numerous text messages that Bendann exchanged with the student during an eight-month period in 2022.
By that time, he was an adult. He’s now 23.
FBI Special Agent Calista Walker testified that investigators for that time recovered 726 pages of texts. The jury received a binder containing a slimmed down version. It was 372 pages.
In the texts, Bendann obsesses over the student not responding to messages, demands nude photos and videos and threatens to expose some of those images:
- “I told you, I have a breaking point, and I’m dangerously close.”
- “You need to be naked now.”
- “I’m going down, but you are, too.”
Walker testified that Bendann created an Instagram account that contained naked photos of the student and followed through several times on the threats to expose them by making the page public.
The student eventually told Bendann that they could no longer stay in touch but might one day be able to remain friends.
“You sexually touched a 16-year-old kid,” he wrote in one lengthy message. “You are a sick person who should be lucky I haven’t gone to the police.”
Eventually, he did.
