More than a year after prosecutors in two Missouri counties charged David Smock with child sex crimes, several counts against the former Agape Boarding School doctor have been dismissed.
Dan Patterson, Greene County prosecuting attorney, said his office dismissed its three charges against Smock last week. The Stockton doctor then was transferred from the county jail in Springfield to the Cedar County Jail on April 5.
Smock, 59, still faces 12 counts of child sex crimes including multiple counts of statutory sodomy, sexual misconduct, child molestation and enticement of a child. Prosecutors with the Missouri Attorney General's Office are leading that case, which originated in Cedar County but is now in Dade County on a change of venue.
"In consultation with the Attorney General's Office, we dismissed our case without prejudice, subject to refiling, to allow that case to take the lead," Patterson told The Star. "Part of our consideration was in the best interest of the victim, and having the more serious case with the greater number of charges go forward first."
The dismissed charges in Greene County were: one count of second-degree statutory sodomy regarding a child; third-degree molestation of a child younger than 14 years of age; and enticement or attempted enticement of a child younger than 15. Those cases were related to one alleged victim, identified in court as C.M., who is also named in the majority of the AG charges.
The boy moved into the doctor's home when he was 13 and left at some point when he was 14, court records and testimony have shown.
Smock has pleaded not guilty to all counts against him.
The investigation of Smock began in October 2020. The Missouri Department of Social Services' Children's Division was notified about a child molestation allegation reported to the Cedar County Sheriff. The case was then investigated by the State Technical Assistance Team, which is under DSS.
Smock, who was arrested in Arkansas on Dec. 28, 2021, had been held in the Greene County Jail since Jan. 5, 2022, and was on a hold without bond for Cedar County. A hearing is scheduled for next week in Dade County, where his attorney will ask the judge to set bond.
Officials with Agape, which is now closed, have previously said Smock was never an employee of the school. Scott Dumar, a key Agape staff member, however, described the doctor's close relationship to the school in a March/April 2020 newsletter.
That staffer, Agape's medical coordinator at the time, said the school is "medically overseen by Dr. David Smock, M.D."
Smock came to Missouri from Arizona and in 2006 built an 11-bedroom mansion with an indoor pool and gymnasium in rural Cedar County between Stockton and Jerico Springs.
He operated the Stockton Lake Walk-in Clinic, which temporarily closed on Jan. 6, 2022, "due to unforeseen circumstances," according to its Facebook page. The last post, on July 19, 2022, said the clinic was permanently closing.
Patterson said his Greene County office will "assess" the case after the AG's is completed.
"It is a matter of protecting the victim from having to repeatedly testify in more than one place," he said.
Former employees of Agape -- an unlicensed Christian boarding school which opened near Stockton in 1996 -- also have faced criminal charges related to physical abuse of students.
In 2021, five staffers were charged with low-level felonies of assaulting boys. At a Dec. 8 preliminary hearing for three of those staff members, Dumar and Everett Graves pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanors and received two years' probation.
The case against Christopher McElroy was dismissed when his alleged victim did not show up to testify. Seth Duncan pleaded guilty on Dec. 14 to one misdemeanor and also received two years' probation.
Ty Gaither, the Cedar County prosecuting attorney, told The Star this week that he recently dismissed charges against the fifth former Agape employee, Trent Hartman. Gaither did not immediately respond to questions on why he dropped those counts.