BALTIMORE — The federal trial of an ex-Gilman School teacher charged with sexually abusing a teenage boy concluded Wednesday afternoon after Christopher K. Bendann opted not to take the stand.

Bendann, 40, was fired in 2023 from the private all-boys school in North Baltimore’s Roland Park where he was a teacher and adviser after allegations emerged that he had given students alcohol and brought them to parks at night to run “naked laps” in 2021.

The former teacher faces federal charges of sexual exploitation of a child, possession of child pornography and cyberstalking. His defense team admitted to the cyberstalking charge, which stems from after the man turned 18.

A jury is expected to start considering the case this afternoon.

The government’s case lasted three days and included testimony from Bendann’s accuser, now a 23-year-old man. The defense rested Wednesday without calling any witnesses. Bendann said Tuesday evening that he would “sleep on” the decision of whether or not to testify. Bendann’s attorney Gary Proctor suggested earlier Tuesday that Bendann would testify that he had maintained a sexual relationship with his accuser when both men were adults.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Hagan flatly disputed that description in her closing argument Wednesday, saying Bendann’s former student was not “in a relationship.” Instead, he “was in hell,” she told jurors.

Last week, the jury heard from Bendann’s accuser, who said Bendann began picking him up at parties and taking him to McDonald’s when he was 15 and began suggesting he take his clothes off or touch himself. The accuser said Bendann, who was his 8th grade adviser, later began abusing him, including at the homes of other Gilman families where Bendann was house-sitting. The former teacher later threatened to make videos and photos of the man public or send them to his friends and family, prosecutors said.

The Baltimore Sun is not naming the man because he says he is a victim of sexual abuse.

Prosecutors played naked videos of the then-teenage boy that the FBI recovered from Bendann’s iCloud account for jurors. Metadata on the video indicates that the first one was taken when the teen was 16, they said. The government presented other evidence, like Bendann’s weekly calendars and testimony from Bendann parents, that prosecutors said proved the videos were shot on particular dates while the teen was a minor.

Christopher Nieto, Bendann’s other court-appointed defense attorney, told jurors Wednesday that Bendann had “clearly lost his mind” after the young man left for college, the period of the cyberstalking charge. Nieto argued that the student’s involved and attentive parents and friends would have noticed any signs of sexual abuse when the teen was still in high school, had any occurred.

“They picked up on nothing, they saw nothing wrong. That’s because there was nothing going on,” said Nieto, insisting that the “relationship came to fruition” after the teen turned 18.

He also attempted to cast doubt on the reliability of the metadata associated with the videos indicating they were made while the teen was still underage.

When his trial began last week, Bendann initially refused to leave his cell at the Chesapeake Detention Center until the judge hearing the case ordered him to come to court.

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