Former Lebanon City Administrator Chris Heard has been charged with child abuse in Galveston County Texas

Former Lebanon City Administrator Chris Heard has been charged with child abuse in Galveston County Texas, about a month after officials with Texas Child Protective Services, removed two teenage girls from his residence. Heard was booked into the Galveston County jail on Wednesday, with a bond set at twenty thousand dollars. Heard has been the city administrator of Dickinson Texas since his departure from Lebanon. Officials earlier this year visited Heard’s home and placed two girls, ages 14 and 17, into foster care, according to Melissa Lanford, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Officials declined to comment further on the investigation. Texas Rangers in October also visited Dickinson City Hall seeking as of yet unspecified government records. The rangers, the State of Texas main criminal investigators, arrived just two weeks after claims by a city official about falsified financial data were publicly disclosed. Heard at the time declined to elaborate on the specifics of the visit, other than to confirm that the rangers arrived seeking city records but left with none.