A Kentucky man is accused of travelling to Alabama to meet an underage high school student in order to rape her, and he is now facing numerous charges of solicitation and rape.

In order to meet a 15-year-old student from Central High School in Florence, Justin Stephens, 43, is charged with travelling over 450 miles from his Lowmansville home.

After arriving at the school, Stephens allegedly contacted and pretended to be the girl’s father in order to check her out for the day, according to a lawsuit filed by the mother of the alleged victim.

According to the lawsuit, the male then sexually assaulted her.

“Stephens left school with [the alleged victim] and took her to an abandoned house … where she was raped and sodomized. The minor can be seen on security cameras returning to Central School with Stephens around 2:00 p.m. in his black Dodge truck,” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit claims that after taking away their daughter’s cell phone, the parents of the alleged victim learnt about the alleged rape.

They reported the purported conversations between their daughter and Stephens to the police.

Stephens was detained by police in October 2024, and according to the indictment, he was charged in January 2025 with rape in the second degree, enticement of a minor for unlawful purpose, and travelling to meet a kid for an illicit sex act.

Stephens was moved by deputies from the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office to the Colbert County Sheriff’s Office last month.

Stephens was facing eight other counts in the neighbouring county after allegedly taking the adolescent to a motel in the vicinity, according to a motion filed at the time, and he had not yet posted his $365,000 bond.

After the motion was approved by the judge, Stephens moved jails and accrued numerous new charges.

Along with the charges from Lauderdale County mentioned above, Stephens is now facing additional charges of first-degree rape, second-degree rape, second-degree sodomy, two counts of electronic solicitation of a child, interference with custody, and two counts of travelling to meet a child for an unlawful sex act.

Stephens was one of the first individuals in the state to be detained under Aniah’s Law following his transfer, which grants courts the authority to refuse bond to persons charged with rape and murder.