By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A 52-year-old Childersburg man is being held in the Shelby County Jail on bonds totaling nearly a million dollars after he was arrested by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and charged with 18 sex crimes – many of them involving children.

Deputies arrested Felix Lionell Garrett, who lists an address on Kymulga Road in Childersburg, on June 16 and charged him with nine counts of first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy and five counts of sexual abuse of a child younger than 12.

First-degree rape and first-degree sodomy are Class A felonies, and carry maximum penalties of life in prison upon conviction. Sexual abuse of a child younger than 12 is a Class B felony, and carries a maximum of 20 years in prison upon conviction.

Garrett’s charges came as the result of an SCSO and Vincent Police Department investigation, which allegedly uncovered multiple years of sexual abuse.

According to his arrest warrants, Garrett’s child sex abuse charges came when he allegedly submitted a child younger than 12 to sexual contact multiple times between July 2010 and June 2014.

His arrest warrants also alleged he engaged “in sexual intercourse with…a member of the opposite sex by forcible compulsion” multiple times between July 2014-May 2017, leading to his first-degree rape charges.

One of his first-degree sodomy charges came when he allegedly engaged in deviate sexual intercourse with a victim who was younger than 12 between July 2010 and June 2014, and three of his first-degree sodomy charges came when he engaged in deviate sexual intercourse with a victim “by forcible compulsion” multiple times between July 2014 and May 2017.

As of June 19, Garrett was being held in the Shelby County Jail on bonds totaling $930,000. He is set to appear in Shelby County District Court on July 27 for a preliminary hearing in front of Judge Daniel Crowson at 8:30 a.m.