Educators Increasingly Accused of Sex Crimes
By Christy Watson, (cwatson@oklahoman.com), Staff Writer
Originally published by The Oklahoman, June 17, 2001
Four times in the last five years, John Kerr claimed a state championship as coach of the Pioneer-Pleasant Vale High School football team.
That record—and a pair of state championships he snagged during his playing days at Morrison High School—have made him a big fish in the small pond of eight-man football.
But it isn't his players or his own domination on the field that have drawn him back into the spotlight—it's a 17-year-old girl.
During the last four years, while Kerr's team was tromping opponents on the football field, the girl alleged the coach continually took advantage of her, sexually touching her and trying to force her to commit sexual acts.
Kerr, who said he was set up, is now charged with a dozen sex-related crimes.
The Oklahoman has documented more than a dozen cases in recent years where popular and successful coaches, teachers or administrators have been accused or convicted of sex-related crimes. Nearly all involve students.
There's no consensus on whether the problem—in Oklahoma and nationwide—is growing, or whether abuse is being reported more often. But there is concern the number of cases will grow as schools struggle to find qualified teachers.
Some fear predatory teachers are getting away with sexual misconduct because students and parents are afraid to come forward.
"You are looking at a person who is in such a position of authority and is in a position of manipulating a young mind, somehow it just seems worse" than other sexual misconduct cases, said Lesley March, the Grady County assistant district attorney prosecuting another sex-crime case involving a teacher and two students.
"These children are in a situation of loving this person and admiring this person, and that's what makes this difficult."
The numbers
The state Education Department is the only agency that attempts to track teachers in trouble.
Based on the number of revoked teaching certificates in recent years, the problem of educators and sex-related crimes is either growing or at least the reporting of such crimes has increased tremendously, according to the Education Department's records.
Between 1986 and 1993, the state board revoked 11 teaching certificates. Seven of those involved sexual misconduct, nearly all with students.
Since 1994, the board has revoked 27 certificates, including 17 for teachers involved in sex-related crimes.
It's the startling number of cases in the past few years that has the attention of education officials.
"There's obviously more cases," said Kay Harley, attorney for the state Education Department. "Whether it's from awareness that it needs to be reported or because it's happening more, who knows? It's a fact, though, it's being reported to us more often."
In 2000, three teachers lost their certificates after being convicted of sexual crimes involving their students or lying about such crimes on their certificate applications. Another was convicted on six felony counts of owning obscene videos of minors.
So far this year, the board has stripped eight educators of the right to teach. Five of those teachers have been convicted of sex-related crimes involving children, according to the education department.
If criminal proceedings on several pending cases progress, the numbers could grow more frightening.
Four teachers and a high school assistant principal in the Oklahoma City School District were accused during the 2000-2001 school year of sex-related crimes. Two of those cases involve students.
A former Harrah high school biology teacher, who students said joked in class about orgasms, is charged with sexual battery and indecent proposals to a child under age 16.
The former Moore High School girls basketball coach is accused of molesting a teen-age student in the locker room.
A band director at Turpin High school is charged with sexual battery and rape of a student. The teacher resigned.
An Apache High School agriculture teacher resigned last month after he was accused of having sexual encounters with two students, including a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
Kerr, the Pioneer football coach, will be in court later this month.
The former Skiatook girls basketball coach, Harry Red Eagle Jr., pleaded no contest June 7 to six felony charges after prosecutors accused him of secretly videotaping girls in the locker room. He will serve 60 days in the county jail in a plea agreement with prosecutor Larry Stuart, a friend of Red Eagle's. In the plea agreement, Red Eagle will receive a 20-year-suspended sentence in August.
Education officials soon are expected to revoke the teaching credentials of Ronald K. Cunningham, who was sentenced to five years in jail and five years probation after he pleaded no contest to oral sodomy, rape by instrumentation and 10 other sex felonies. He wrote sexually explicit notes and e-mails to a 14-year-old student.
As with most forms of abuse, officials suspect many cases of teachers acting inappropriately with students go unreported. Sometimes, prosecutors and police know about accusations but victims and the accused won't cooperate.
Such is the case in Ringling, where prosecutor Dennis Gay said he investigated an alleged ongoing relationship between a high school student and teacher. Neither the girl or teacher would cooperate, he said. The investigation was closed.
Cases could grow more numerous, prosecutors said.
A new law, effective Nov. 1, will make it a crime for a school district employee to have sex with a student under age 18 in the same district. Under existing law, teen-agers can consent to a sexual relationship at age 16. So, a teacher having a consensual sexual relationship with a 16- or 17-year-old student is not a crime.
This fall, a teacher in such a relationship can be charged with rape.
"I don't think this is a common occurrence in our schools, but this is a situation where one time is too many," said Sen. Jonathan Nichols, R-Norman, who authored the law.
Nichols said some prosecutors brought the gap in the law to his attention.
State schools Superintendent Sandy Garrett has warned superintendents about the change and wants them to inform all of their employees.
"They need to understand the gravity of the situation. Students are simply off limits," Garrett said.
The victims
Several girls leveling accusations against their teachers declined, through their attorneys, to be interviewed for this report. The attorneys said the girls and their families are emotionally traumatized, and several of the criminal cases are ongoing.
But court officials and documents tell their stories:
It was March 1997 when a girl, then age 13, walked into the coach's office at Pioneer High School, according to a court affidavit filed in Garfield County District Court.
The girl said Kerr told her to lay on a table while he massaged her left thigh. Kerr's massage moved further up her leg, the girl said, until Kerr "popped" her underwear. She asked what he was doing but says he told her to "lay down and relax." Then, she said, he went too far, touching her inappropriately with his pinkie finger.
Over the next four years, Kerr took her to his house, kissed her, rubbed her breasts and would touch her in a way prosecutors describe as second-degree rape by instrumentation, according to a court affidavit.
She resisted when he tried to force her to perform oral sex, police said.
Kerr said he trusted her and told her she was special, court records show. He said she shouldn't tell anyone, the girl told investigators.
The girl was having family problems, said her attorney, Matt Davis. She felt trapped, scared and confused, he said.
Davis said school officials were alerted as early as 1998 about the allegations and did nothing. Davis plans to sue the school district for what he calls its deliberate indifference.
Davis filed a federal lawsuit last week against the district and superintendent, saying Kerr molested another student who since has graduated and that school officials knew about it. Superintendent Bill Noak has said he investigated rumors, but the girl in the civil suit would not tell him anything.
"You have this guy who's basically the superhero of the school. It was not a relationship of equals," Davis said.
Prosecutors charged Kerr earlier this month with a dozen sex-related crimes, and police say they have him on tape saying "he was ashamed to talk about what he had done."
In his defense, Kerr's attorneys said he was set up so another coach could take his job.
A defense motion filed by Kerr attorney Stephen Jones said the girl was overly flirtatious, dropped by the coach's home often and that Kerr told an assistant coach, Richard Grady, that he thought the girl was unstable.
The defense motion also contains exhibits of cards from the student declaring her love for Kerr.
Manipulation was key in another case that led to the resignation of a popular teacher in Apache, according to the prosecutor.
Donald Kip Boggs, a high school agriculture teacher, acted more like his students' friend than their teacher. He listened to their gossip about parties and dating, topics other teachers avoided, said March, who is prosecuting the case.
"He would talk to them on their level. He came across more like a cool friend or someone more their age than an authority figure," she said.
Authorities believe he had oral sex with one student on a school-sponsored trip and asked another girl to meet him in the school's greenhouse to perform sexual acts.
The charges against Boggs include two students, but March believes there are more.
"We're still in the process of verifying how long this went back," the prosecutor said. "At this point in the investigation, it has gone back 10 years, but due to the passage of time and statute of limitation problems, we anticipate it would be very difficult to file charges."
Students whom he worked with closely in the agriculture program were especially vulnerable to his manipulation, she said.
"He would encourage them, make them feel good about themselves. Here's someone that is an attractive, intelligent grown-up telling you all the things you want to hear."
The criminal case against Boggs will continue next month. One Apache family is expected to file a civil suit against the school district this week.
Boggs resigned but will be paid until his contract ends this month, which has angered the girls' families, March said.
Who are they?
No one can put a definitive face on the teacher or administrator who commits sexual crimes against children. But there are patterns.
Most of the cases involve men sexually assaulting girls. But cases in Oklahoma also have involved a female cheerleading coach molesting an eighth-grade cheerleader and a male coach molesting boys on his team.
Ages vary, but coaches and teachers involved in extracurricular activities appear most susceptible. They enjoy close and often one-on-one contact with students. They spend time with their victims' parents. They win championships and awards, giving them popularity among students and everyone in the community.
And sometimes, officials say, that's why these educators think they'll never get caught.
"You've got two issues: sex and power," said one veteran high school principal who asked not to be named.
"I don't think it's as much about sex as it is about the power. I think it's that need to be in charge, and some people just look for that in a vulnerable student. We have a lot of vulnerable students. They think, 'I can do it and you can't do anything to me because no one will believe you.'"
