The Child Protection eNewsletter

Lafave’s district racks up sex offenses…

The arrest of a middle school teacher accused of having sex with a teenage student has thrust a Florida school district made famous by Debra Lafave into an uncomfortable yet familiar position. Read More

Stephanie Ragusa, a 28-year-old special education teacher, was arrested and charged with five counts of lewd and lascivious battery for what sheriff's deputies in Hillsborough County described as a consensual sexual relationship with a 14-year-old male student.

Ragusa's alleged affair took place between January and May 2007 and included intercourse on at least three occasions and oral sex twice, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The encounters took place in Ragusa's Tampa apartment and in the back seat of her Lexus, according to the sheriff's office.

A school resource officer met with the student, now 15, after rumors began swirling about an affair involving a teacher. Detectives then interviewed the teen and his parents. The teen told authorities that Ragusa had a pair of tattoos on "either side of the groin area" that could only be seen if the teacher was naked.

Ragusa was a teacher at Davidsen Middle School last year when the alleged affair took place. Davidsen is part of the Hillsborough County school district, which has come to know teacher-student sex scandals intimately--in large part thanks to Debra Lafave.

The bombshell blonde, arguably the highest-profile female teacher involved in a student sex scandal this century, also taught at a Hillsborough County middle school, the Greco Middle School. Lafave is currently serving three years of house arrest and seven years' probation after pleading guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old male student during a 2004 affair. She was 23 at the time.

During the same period as Lafave's affair, Jaymee Wallace, a math teacher and girls basketball coach at Wharton High School in Hillsborough County, was having a consensual lesbian relationship with a female student basketball player. The two-year relationship began with a note from Wallace, then 28, to the student, 14: "I think you're attractive. Do you feel the same?" The affair lasted nearly two years, even through Wallace's marriage.

Wallace was arrested in November 2005. The student asked a Florida judge before Wallace's October 2007 sentencing to spare the woman jail time. The student's family, however, told the judge it wanted her to serve at least three years, which is exactly the prison sentence she received--plus three years of probation. Like Lafave, she also must be registered in a sex offender database.

In October 2007, Christina Lin Butler, a 33-year-old special education teacher at Hillsborough County's Middleton High School, was arrested after admitting to having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male student there.

Police conducting surveillance in Butler's neighborhood pulled over a Jeep Cherokee that was swerving and traced the vehicle to Butler. The driver told police that his "friend" Christina had lent him the car, according to ABC News' Tampa affiliate, and another passenger said the driver was in a relationship with Butler. Police investigated and arrested Butler after she admitted the sexual relationship to police.

Butler was booked on a single charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor. She was released from the Hillsborough County Jail after posting a $7,500 bond, according to sheriff's office records.

Hillsborough School District is the eighth largest school district in the country, Linda Cobbe, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County School District, told ABC News, with more than 15,000 teachers, 236 schools and 192,000 students. A reputation for teachers preying on students is hardly what the school district wants, and Cobbe said that district officials do everything they can to vet employees.

When problems do arise, the school district does not hide. "We address it every time it happens," Cobbe said, describing ethics classes every teacher must take that address inappropriate relationships with students. "We don't stand for it."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes a look at whether or not the rules, and the punishments, are relaxed when the predator teacher is female and the student is male. Read More

For more on teacher abusers, see vol2_iss24 and vol1_iss7.

UK considers naughty kids database…

A civil rights storm has erupted in England after the country's police chief called for the DNA of badly behaved children as young as five to be recorded on a national database. Read More

Forensic science director for the Metropolitan Police Gary Pugh said bad children should be "targeted" because future offenders could often be picked out at a young age.

The idea has attracted high-level political support despite complaints from civil libertarians. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signaled that ministers were looking at the idea and Home Office officials said plans to include primary school children would be kept "under review".

Britain's criminal surveillance network includes one of the world's biggest DNA databases which holds 4.5 million samples of genetic material, many taken from people who have been arrested but never charged with a crime. By next year, it is expected that 1.5 million of the samples will be from youngsters aged between 10 and 18.

Mr. Pugh, who speaks on DNA for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said signs of future criminality could be found in children as young as five. "If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long term, the benefits of targeting young people are extremely large," he said.

"You could argue the younger the better."

A spokesman for lobby group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said he was upset by the proposal. "My five-year-old likes sword-fighting and Power Rangers," he said. "If this idea goes ahead he will be coming back from school one day with his name down on a criminal intelligence database."

Loophole gives sex offenders $$$ for college…

Across the nation, dozens of sexual predators have been taking higher education classes at taxpayer expense while confined by the courts to treatment centers. Read More Critics say they are exploiting a loophole to receive Pell Grants, the nation's premier financial aid program for low-income students.

Prison inmates are ineligible for Pell Grants under a 1994 law. Students convicted of certain drug offenses are also ineligible. But sexual predators qualify once they are transferred from prison to treatment centers.

James Sturtz, a 48-year-old rapist, is one of Iowa's most dangerous sex offenders, locked up in a state-run treatment center for fear he will attack again if released. Yet he has received thousands of dollars in federal aid to take college courses through the mail.

"This is the most insane waste of taxpayer money that I have seen in my eight years in Congress," said Representative Ric Keller, a Florida Republican who is pushing to stop the practice. "It is a national embarrassment that we are wasting taxpayer dollars for pedophiles and rapists to take college courses while hardworking young people from lower-class families are flipping hamburgers to pay for college."

Moreover, some institutions report that sex offenders are putting the financial aid to questionable uses by buying such things as clothes, a DVD player and music CDs--sometimes, after they have dropped out of school. Pell Grants can legally be put toward expenses that are education-related. But the unused portion of a grant is supposed to be repaid when someone withdraws from school.

Keller's plan would affect 20 states that allow authorities to hold violent sex offenders indefinitely after they have served their prison sentences. He predicted the measure would save taxpayers millions.

Some say taking away the financial aid for correspondence courses would be a mistake. They say education could help sex offenders build stable lives and reduce their chances of committing another crime if they are ever released.

The U.S. Education Department does not track how many sexual predators confined to treatment centers have received aid, in part because the offenders do not have to disclose their living arrangements on the application forms. But within the past five years, at least several dozen have received Pell Grants. And the department is only following the law.

In other news…

Florida’s Orange County Public School District is investigating claims that a student was forced to use a lunchbox as a toilet in front of his class at Meadowbrook Middle School. Read More The teacher will not be coming to school. She will be relieved of her duty with pay as the school district investigates, officials said. "If you gotta go, you gotta go," student Quonterious Thomas told Eyewitness News in an interview. Thomas, 13, says his language arts teacher, Jameeka Chambers, gave him two options when he had to go to the bathroom at Meadowbrook Middle School in Orange County. She said he could wait until the end of class or use her lunchbox in the back of the classroom. The sixth grader said he used her lunchbox. "If I had waited any longer, I would have peed on myself and that would have been even more embarrassing," Thomas said, adding that his entire class of 19 students and his teacher watched. When Thomas told his mom, she said she didn't believe it at first and later realized how traumatized he was. "I have never, in all the days been living, ever heard about anything happening in all my life. This is a really big shocker for me," said Shameka Bryant, Thomas' mom.

A Greensburg, Pennsylvania man was charged with the rape of a 5-month-old girl. Read More Scott Wade Smith, 18, was arraigned before Greensburg District Judge James Albert on charges of aggravated assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse resulting in serious bodily injury and endangering the welfare of a child. He was jailed in lieu of $1 million bail. Greensburg police allege that Smith raped the infant at a city home where several people, including the infant's mother, were living. Court papers indicated that Smith was caring for the child that morning.

An 8-year-old girl was locked in a truck for at least two hours while her parents were drinking inside a Florida bar. Read More Edward Wise Davis, 37, and Lisa Brazell Davis, 36, face charges of child neglect after police say they found the girl locked in the truck, the TV station reports. Police responded to Siggy's American Bar after receiving a report of the girl in the truck. Officers say Edward Davis, after driving to the bar with his daughter to meet his wife, told the girl to stay in the vehicle and "keep the doors locked and not to let anyone in the truck," according to MyFOXOrlando.com. The child told police that she was scared that someone might kidnap her.

The number of British sex offenders banned from working with youngsters has soared from 4,921 to 8,036 in the last year, the UK Schools Secretary Ed Balls revealed. Read More The rise in the number of people on the so-called "List 99" was mainly due to the regulations being tightened last year, he said, announcing that four people who had been given only a partial bar, allowing them to carry out some work with children, had now been given a total ban. The figures released today show that 8,036 people were on the list on March 13 this year, up from 4,921 on February 27 last year. Mr. Balls said the “vast majority” of the increase was due to amendments made to the List 99 regulations which came into force on February 28 last year.

*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org"