Law would ID criminal teachers
When Cincinnati police arrested a popular teacher accused of improperly touching some of his sixth-graders at Heberle Elementary last February, his colleagues were stunned.
It might not have come as such a surprise had they known that the teacher had faced similar sex charges more than a decade earlier in Covington.
The teacher, William J. Gray, was found guilty Monday of sexual imposition, a misdemeanor, for touching a sixth-grade boy's genitals.
Such cases are why one Ohio lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require school districts to more thoroughly investigate the backgrounds of aspiring teachers and others who want to work in schools.
State Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, says school districts should use checks similar to those by business to weed out applicants who use false identities, lie or hopscotch the coun try to hide histories.
Deeper checks could prevent what some call “passing the trash” — when school districts allow lawbreakers to resign in lieu of prosecution, Sen. Hottinger said.
“We have an epidemic of people being employed without being checked out very well,”
said William R. Mason Jr., vice president of School Match, a Columbus-based school safety, research and consulting firm that convinced Sen. Hottinger to introduce the bill.
“More than half of all Fortune 500 companies use these (expanded) checks. Why is it more important to check out the parents of these kids than it is to check out the people we want to teach and protect these kids?”
A 1993 state law requires school districts to dismiss employees — or reject job applicants — who have been convicted of one of 46 crimes. Most involve sex, drugs and violence. The law also allows the state to revoke, suspend or deny certification for “conduct unbecoming the position of a teacher.”
Kentucky requires national and state checks through the FBI and Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Department of Education spokeswoman Lisa Gross said.
Under Ohio's law, the Ohio Department of Education yanked the licenses of 65 teachers last year and 76 in 1998, including several from Cincinnati.
Offenses ranged from welfare fraud to voluntary manslaughter. Forty percent involved theft charges; 33 percent, fraud or falsification; 20 percent, sex offenses; 10 percent, drugs.The figures add up to more than 100 percent because some teachers were charged with more than offense.
But with nearly 400,000 licensed teachers statewide and another 10,900 receiving certificates last year, experts say, many districts barely keep up with background checks and more offenders might lurk in the teaching ranks.
Districts now check applicants' records with the FBI and Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. Those checks uncover criminal convictions, but they often don't detect outstanding warrants, expunged charges or other problems.
Under Sen. Hottinger's bill, an independent agency hired by the state would investigate an applicant's:
• Social Security number to ensure an applicant hasn't falsified his or her identity.
• Employment history. Interviews with previous supervisors would verify an applicant's job history and measure past performance.
• Motor-vehicle records.
• Public records including records of civil litigation.
• Criminal records for felony and misdemeanor convictions for up to 10 addresses in up to three counties in any state for the seven years before the background check is requested.
Applicants for teaching jobs would be required to pay for the checks, which wouldn't exceed $100. For the 3,500 people who apply each year for such non-teaching jobs as custodians and bus drivers, the state would foot the cost, estimated to be $350,000.
The bill is pending in the Senate's education committee.
Deeper checks would have alerted Cincinnati Public Schools officials to Mr. Gray's troubles in Covington.
Mr. Gray, hired by CPS in 1994, faced felony sex-abuse charges in Kenton Circuit Court in 1987 after four of his third-grade students at John G. Carlisle School said he fondled them.
One trial ended in a hung jury in August 1987. He was acquitted in a second trial. And because the court later granted his request for an expungement, CPS officials say, they never learned about the Covington case when they did his pre-employment background check. But details of his troubles were contained in his school personnel records.
Mr. Gray was found guilty Monday in the Cincinnati case. Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Jack Rosen convicted Mr. Gray of sexual imposition, a misdemeanor, for touching a sixth-grade boy's genitals. He was acquitted of other counts involving allegations that he touched several boys' buttocks.
His license has not been suspended or revoked. ODE Spokeswoman Patti Grey said ODE needs documentation of criminal convictions before starting the disciplinary process.
His attorney, Scott Croswell, couldn't be reached.
City attorney Frances Sheard, who prosecuted Mr. Gray in the Cincinnati case, said everything in a person's background — even acquittals — should be known when children are involved.
“There should be more stringent background checks, not just for teachers but for anyone who goes near a school, because you are locking them in a building all day every day with children.”
Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen agreed: “You just can't be too careful with children. Anything we can do to protect them and make sure the people who are teaching have their best interests in mind, we should do.”
The bill doesn't have unanimous support, however.
Ohio Education Association President Michael Billirakis complained that requiring applicants to pay for their background checks is a financial burden, especially for young college graduates with school loans. The association represents 122,000 teachers and other school employees.
He also raised concerns about privacy.
“Children's safety is very important, and we want the best and safest situation in every classroom,” he said. “But we have to make sure the law is not so broad that it violates the privacy of teachers. The world doesn't need to know that you had a bankruptcy or a bad divorce.”
Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Tave Zelman said she would support expanded checks but said Sen. Hottinger's bill doesn't — and should — address teachers who become lawbreakers.
Since the early 1980s, state law has required prosecutors to report criminal teachers to ODE.
But some cases fall through the cracks. Requiring checks when teachers' licenses are up for renewal would help screen for those scofflaws, Ms. Zelman said.
One supporter emphasized that any hint of a tarnished past should cause hesitation in hiring.
“Schools are not a social-service institution,” School Match's Mr. Rosen said. “They're not there to hire people and give them jobs. they're there to teach and protect kids.
“If you had two apparently equal job candidates, and one's record looks like it could be blemished, who are you going to select? Why would you gamble?”
One parent wishes lawmakers nationally would embrace more stringent checks.
Carol Gibbs' daughter attended a Cincinnati public school when its principal resigned after allegations of improper contact with male students. He wasn't charged. Ms. Gibbs said she heard he left the state and wondered where he works now.
“The union and the district should demand that these checks be made,” said Ms. Gibbs, whose daughter is now in college. “Pedophiles can go from state to state and molest kids in schools and not get caught.”
April 7, 2000
By Janet Prasad
WHEELING, Ill. (APBnews.com) -- Bond was set at $500,000 for a day-care worker accused of sexually molesting four little girls in his care. David M. Kanofsky, 46, of Des Plaines appeared in Cook County Circuit Court on Thursday on four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, said Marcy O'Boyle, a spokeswoman for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
Authorities said he used his position as a day-care teacher to get close to the girls, ages 4 and 5.
Kanofsky allegedly abused the girls between August 1999 and this March, when the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) contacted the Wheeling Police Department, O'Boyle said.
On March 10, DCFS alerted police to a possible sexual abuse case involving a teacher at Horizons Children's Center, police said. About two weeks later, it was clear to investigators that there was more than one victim.
Suspended from job
"We have just had the upsetting information that the police have arrested a former staff member for allegedly having acted inappropriately with children," said Suzan Tash, executive director of the Horizons Children's Center, in a written statement.
"Previously -- immediately upon hearing the allegations -- we reported the matter to the appropriate authorities in accordance with the law and suspended him pending the results of the investigation," Tash said.
The center conducts thorough background checks on all prospective employees before they are hired, Tash said, and there was nothing in Kanofsky's background to indicate he was a potential danger to children.
Kanofsky was arrested Wednesday. His next court date is for a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 28. Kanofsky has no prior criminal record, O'Boyle said.
Janet Prasad is an APBnews.com Midwest correspondent (janet.prasad@apbnews.com)
.June 29, 1999
By Hans H. Chen
MIAMI (APBnews.com) -- When police in North Miami arrested school bus driver Cesar Gonzalez-Rubio on charges of committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child, they thought Megan's Law would keep him from ever working near children again. But, less than a year later, police say Gonzalez-Rubio was back behind the wheel of his yellow bus, where the 65-year-old used candy bars, lollipops and money to bait children onto his lap and molest them again.
It's the sort of thing that wasn't supposed to happen after President Clinton signed a national version of Megan's Law in 1996 requiring sex offenders to register with police when they get out of jail.
But what victims' rights groups say is happening more and more frequently -- and what happened in the case of Gonzalez-Rubio -- is that accused molesters, desperate to keep their names off lists, are plea bargaining to lesser offenses, and prosecutors, eager to assure convictions, are taking the deals.
11-year-old accuses driver
Gonzalez-Rubio's case began in June 1998, when an 11-year-old girl accused him of sticking his hand down her skirt and fondling her.
Police quickly arrested him and charged him with committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child younger than 12. The felony sex offense would have put him out of work and landed him on the state's sex offender registry. But before Gonzalez-Rubio's trial, the little girl revised her story. Gonzalez-Rubio fondled her, but she fled before he reached her privates, she said. Prosecutors, anxious to keep Gonzalez-Rubio from walking away with no punishment, offered him a plea bargain. He admitted to misdemeanor child abuse and went on probation.
The parents who entrusted their children to the driver every day had no idea of his record until after his latest arrest March 17. Since then, prosecutors say nearly a dozen children have come forward to say he sexually abused them.
"This is one of those prosecutors' and law enforcement's worst nightmares," said Don Ungurait, a spokesman for the Dade County State Attorney's Office.
Legislators take action
The ability of Gonzalez-Rubio and others like him to avoid Megan's Law has moved some lawmakers to action. In New York state, Assemblyman George Maziarz has sponsored a bill that would prevent suspects in sex offense cases from pleading down to non-sex-related crimes. The bill passed the state Senate in February and is now pending in the state Assembly.
"These are measures we feel are very necessary to crack down on sex offenders and to protect children," Maziarz said. "On the positive side, if the offenders don't plead to a sex offense, they won't get the counseling they need."
Prosecutors say they need pleas
But prosecutors and even some victims' rights advocates say plea bargaining is a necessary evil when fighting sex offenses. Faced with weak cases, young or vulnerable victims and defense pressure to keep an offender off sex offender registries, a plea bargain to a lesser charge may represent the best possible outcome in some sex crimes, they say.
"The prosecutor knows he can't prove the charge, but he knows the guy's willing to take five years, so is it a bad thing to change the [charge] and take the five years?" asked Connecticut Rep. Mike Lawlor, a former prosecutor and the sponsor of the state's sex offender registry law.
"You could plead to reckless endangerment or simple assault -- something that's not sexual in nature," he said. "There's no shortage of crimes out there."
Mercy for victims, young offenders
In many instances, young victims may be too traumatized by the abuse to testify, weakening a case.
"The most important aspect that you have to look at is the child, ultimately," said Maureen Kanka, the mother of Megan Kanka, whose murder inspired the sex offender notification laws.
"Many people in the public, be they private citizens or the media, unless they delve into the issue, they don't understand why plea bargains are done," she said. "A lot of times, it's for the benefit of the child victim."
In some cases, prosecutors may offer plea bargains to teenagers who they think may not deserve a lifetime on a sex offender registry.
"Family Court judges and prosecutors often go to great lengths to avoid Megan's Law," said Joseph Del Russo, a prosecutor in Passaic County, N.J., who handles sex crimes cases. "They think that the stigma that arises from Megan's Law is disproportionate to the offense. The case might best be characterized as a problem of adolescence rather than deviancy."
Incentives for prosecutors, offenders
Also, the increasing harshness of sex offender laws creates a strong incentive for defendants to plead to non-sex offenses.
"The fact that they have to register annually, and the fact that their names are accessible on the state Internet site is unacceptable to most of them," said Loni DeLand, a defense attorney in Salt Lake City, Utah. "If it's an incredibly weak case, they'll try to plead to non-sexual child abuse, because the stigma of being a child molester is worse than being a murderer."
Some prosecutors say given these difficulties in sex offense cases, pinning any type of conviction on a suspect at least places the offender under court supervision. A previous conviction can launch an aggressive prosecution if the suspect is arrested again.
"If I know they've done it before, I'm going to push for the harshest penalty, and maybe I'll even go for a trial," said a sex crime prosecutor from western New York who spoke on the condition of anonymity because office policy prevents speaking to the press. "You can tell by looking at the rap sheet what they were initially charged with and what they pled down to. Prosecutors understand this."
Opening loopholes
Many victims' rights advocates, however, fear that letting a sexual predator off the hook for sex charges opens the door to all kinds of legal loopholes that allow offenders to eliminate even that lesser charge from their record.
The prime way that can happen -- and a way that's common for child molesters -- is deferred adjudication, known as suspended sentences in some cases.
In deferred adjudication, a suspect pleads guilty to a crime, but he escapes punishment as long as he stays out of trouble for the next year or several years. At the end of that period, his record is wiped clean, erasing mention of his arrest and guilty plea.
Deferred adjudication is a popular avenue for sex offenders, especially those accused of minor sex crimes such as fondling. In Texas, the Criminal Justice Policy Council, a state research agency, discovered that sexual assaults and indecency charges led all other crimes for deferred adjudication in 1993, the most recent statistics available.
Sexual assaults against children were more likely to result in deferred adjudication than attacks on adults, the study found.
"The real crime, if the victim was too young or too traumatized to testify, is that if your sister gets hurt by this person, it's going to look like a first offense rather than a second offense," said Kim English, who has studied the sentencing of sex offenders as the research director for the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.
Counseling can be critical
Besides giving sex offenders a chance to attack again, convicting them of a non-sex offense may actually make it more likely that they'll commit another assault, say experts. Not only does it let a predator avoid sex offender registries, it also eliminates the possibility of court-mandated counseling sessions. These treatments can be essential to preventing another sex attack in the future, say experts.
In Texas, part of the state's Megan's Law mandated counseling for juvenile offenders, as well as registration, but defendants' efforts to avoid the stigma of being listed on a sex registry were short-circuiting the counseling element.
"The intent of the law was to better track sex offenders," said Vicki Spriggs, the executive director of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. "As a result, though, you have kids out there [who pleaded down] who are sex offenders who can't get treatment for being sex offenders."
"If the court is giving you incentive to say you're not guilty, then why would you go and admit your guilt?" Spriggs added. "Most kids don't walk around saying they are sex offenders."
'Is it right?'
In some states, the loopholes are closing. Utah passed a victims' rights amendment to its state constitution that requires victims to approve any plea bargains. In cases of child victims, the child's parents must approve the plea bargain.
In Texas, spurred by the 1993 numbers, legislators passed a law in 1995 that permanently preserves a deferred adjudication plea for sex offenses on a person's criminal history.
"The beauty of this is we may have to give this guy deferred adjudication, but deferred adjudication means the guy is still accountable," said Rob Kepple, general counsel for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.
But loopholes remain. Florida's tough new sex offender laws could have confined Gonzalez-Rubio indefinitely in a mental hospital, but he escaped that fate because his crime had been reduced to a misdemeanor. His plea, essentially, freed him to molest nearly a dozen more kids.
"Is it right?" Maureen Kanka said. "No. Is it understandable? Yes. And that's how the criminal justice system works."
Hans H. Chen is an APBnews.com staff writer (hans.chen@apbnews.com
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