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'America's Best Dance Crew' Judge Shane Sparks Arrested and Charged With Child Molestation

By: mtv.comPosted On: 12/19/2009 2:46 P

Los Angeles police arrested "America's Best Dance Crew" judge Shane Sparks (born Melvin Shane Sparks), Friday morning (December 18) on a felony warrant and charged him with eight counts of felony child molestation. He is being held on $590,000 bail.

According to a spokesperson for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, Sparks was taken into custody at around 8 a.m. PT on Friday on a felony warrant charging him with molestation that began in 1993 and allegedly continued until 1997.

Sparks, whose age was listed as 40 in the arrest warrant, was charged with six felony counts of committing a lewd act on a child, identified by her first name and last initial as being under the age of 14, "with the intent of arousing, appealing to, and gratifying the lust, passions and sexual desires of the said defendant and the said child." The alleged incidents are said to have occurred between July 1, 1994 and August 1, 1994, December 1, 1994 and August 3, 1995, August 4, 1995 and April 30, 1997 and April 4, 1995 and April 30, 1997.

He was also charged with two counts of oral copulation of a person under the age of 16 by someone over the age of 21 for incidents that allegedly occurred between April 4, 1995 and April 30, 1997 and August 4, 1995 and April 30, 1997.

KTTV Fox News 11 in Los Angeles reported that the victim was one of Sparks' dance students at Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles.

MTV had no comment on the arrest, and a rep for Sparks told MTV News that no comment was available at press time.

Cincinnati-born Sparks has worked with Brandy, Aaliyah, Monica and Lindsay Lohan and was nominated for an Emmy for his choreography on "So You Think You Can Dance."

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