02-25-2006, 08:38 AM
School district sued over autistic child sex assault
By Scott E. Williams
Galveston Daily News
Published February 25, 2006
TEXAS CITY — A lawsuit claims lax standards by Texas City school officials led to a boy being raped repeatedly on campus.
The boy was a special education student at Levi Fry Intermediate School in the fall of 2004, when the lawsuit claims the assaults took place.
The lawsuit was filed by the boy’s family.
In January 2005, the boy reportedly told his mother that a “hall monitor” had repeatedly taken him out of class and into a storage room near the school’s library where he sexually assaulted the child.
A criminal investigation into the case ended with charges that remained pending as of Friday.
Mario Chapa, 22, faces charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by contact.
The lawsuit, which claims Chapa was a relative of several school district administrators, asserts that the district has a history of allowing unqualified people too much access to students with special needs.
“By the time of the assaults, the superintendent had already been required to provide deposition testimony in another case in which a special needs child had been assaulted by an uneducated, untrained male,” plaintiff’s attorney Tony Buzbee wrote.
District spokeswoman Melissa Tortorici declined to comment on the suit.
“We haven’t even had a chance to see the suit, so it really wouldn’t be appropriate to comment right now,” she said.
In the deposition, conducted in November 2004, Superintendent Richard Ettredge admitted that he had no training in the detection of sexual abuse. He also said the district had no policy barring children from being left alone with untrained employees.
That case ended with the district paying a $215,000 settlement to the family of an autistic girl, 5, who was sexually assaulted while at Heights Elementary School, where she attended special education classes.
Shortly after the August settlement, Buzbee, who also represented that family, pointed to two policy changes that resulted from the case.
One intensified the screening process applied to hiring substitute teachers. The accused aide was designated as a substitute. The other change bars teachers from being alone with individual children in any isolated area.
By Scott E. Williams
Galveston Daily News
Published February 25, 2006
TEXAS CITY — A lawsuit claims lax standards by Texas City school officials led to a boy being raped repeatedly on campus.
The boy was a special education student at Levi Fry Intermediate School in the fall of 2004, when the lawsuit claims the assaults took place.
The lawsuit was filed by the boy’s family.
In January 2005, the boy reportedly told his mother that a “hall monitor” had repeatedly taken him out of class and into a storage room near the school’s library where he sexually assaulted the child.
A criminal investigation into the case ended with charges that remained pending as of Friday.
Mario Chapa, 22, faces charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by contact.
The lawsuit, which claims Chapa was a relative of several school district administrators, asserts that the district has a history of allowing unqualified people too much access to students with special needs.
“By the time of the assaults, the superintendent had already been required to provide deposition testimony in another case in which a special needs child had been assaulted by an uneducated, untrained male,” plaintiff’s attorney Tony Buzbee wrote.
District spokeswoman Melissa Tortorici declined to comment on the suit.
“We haven’t even had a chance to see the suit, so it really wouldn’t be appropriate to comment right now,” she said.
In the deposition, conducted in November 2004, Superintendent Richard Ettredge admitted that he had no training in the detection of sexual abuse. He also said the district had no policy barring children from being left alone with untrained employees.
That case ended with the district paying a $215,000 settlement to the family of an autistic girl, 5, who was sexually assaulted while at Heights Elementary School, where she attended special education classes.
Shortly after the August settlement, Buzbee, who also represented that family, pointed to two policy changes that resulted from the case.
One intensified the screening process applied to hiring substitute teachers. The accused aide was designated as a substitute. The other change bars teachers from being alone with individual children in any isolated area.