“This
is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
On
May 26, 2010, a Fairfax County jury….in only 10 minutes …found a schoolteacher
not guilty of molesting a 12-year-old girl in their school gym. The cops had charged the teacher with
aggravated sexual battery and abduction.
The
entire case against him was based on the testimony of two sixth-grade girls who
said the teacher had picked up one of the girls in the middle of the school
gym, carried her into an equipment room, laid her down on a mat, and massaged
her shoulders, groping her in the process.
He
did admit to lightheartedly picking up one of the girls and twirling her in the
air. However there are no mats in the
equipment room where the girls said he carried one of them. The main accuser, who acknowledged having a
grudge against the teacher for threatening to discipline her for her bullying
behavior on the school bus patrol, said the teacher briefly touched her breast
and buttock during the incident.
The
cop who investigated the child molestation claims never looked at the room
where the alleged incident was supposed to have occurred. School administrator explained to her that
the room could not fit the tumbling mats that the lying 12-year-old accuser
claimed she was placed.
In
fact, when staff and parents tried to tell the police investigator in the case
what actually happened, she threatened them with prosecution for obstruction of
justice. The school district
investigator confirmed those claims.
When
the accuser’s close friend and corroborating witness to the incident quickly
tried to retract her story, her mother said, the cop refused to hear what the
little girl had to say. The cop told the
mother “if she changes her story, they’re going to wonder why she changed her
testimony. She said, ‘I know how to do
my job. Don’t tell me how to do my job”
Shortly
after the little girl recanted, Fairfax County launched a Child Protective
Services investigation into the witness’s mother for alleged inappropriate
behavior by her boyfriend. The witness’s
mother was eventually cleared of any allegations of misbehavior.
The
Jurors said the prosecution had no case, and after reading their legal
instructions, it took the seven women and five men about 10 minutes to come to
their unanimous decision. Four jurors
said they thought that the teacher should never have been arrested in the first
place.
Several
months after the teacher was acquitted, Fairfax prosecutors dismissed another
of the cop’s child abuse cases when the investigator acknowledged that she had
misstated some key facts in her sworn testimony.
The
cop has not been fired. The Board of
Supervisors said and did nothing.