Ex-RPA director removes GPS, flees before abuse trial
The former director of the Redmond Proficiency Academy, who spent over a year in prison for abusing two underage students and faced trial next week on new allegations, has removed his GPS ankle bracelet and is likely fleeing the state, police said Thursday as they asked the public for help in finding him.
Police are trying to find Michael Tallman, 45, formerly known as Michael Bremont, who also has used the name Jacob Straib, Lt. Curtis Chambers said.
In 2012, Bremont was arrested after police learned he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor female who was a student when he was director of the charter school, a role similar to principal. He was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse for abusing two students, the other a student at Central Linn High School when he worked there, and served 14 months of a 19-month sentence.
It was suspected there were other victims, but there wasn’t probable cause for other arrests, Chambers said.
Last December, he was arrested on 10 counts of sexual abuse, several months after another alleged victim came forward to police to disclose she’d had a sexual relationship with Bremont when she was an RPA student and that it began when she was under the age of 18.
Bremont (Tallman) was scheduled to go on trial on the charges next Tuesday. He had been released from custody after his indictment, with the condition he wore a GPS ankle bracelet, pending trial.
“The GPS ankle bracelet has been recovered and Tallman’s whereabouts are unknown,” Chambers said in a news release. “It is believed Tallman has or is about to flee the state.”
The lieutenant said Redmond police detectives are seeking Tallman’s whereabouts “and will not stop looking for Tallman until he is in custody.”
The agency asked anyone with information about Tallman’s whereabouts to contact police by calling Deschutes County’s 911 dispatch non-emergency line at 541-693-6911 or their local police.
