A lawsuit, another victim and more victims likely to come: Child-porn investigation widens at elementary school
Md. parents demand answers as 12th victim is identified in child-porn case
(about 5 hours later)
Prince George’s County police have now identified a total of 12 victims in a child-pornography investigation involving an elementary school volunteer.
A meeting at a Prince George’s County elementary school roiled by child pornography charges drew hundreds of parents and grandparents Thursday night, many of them angry and demanding to know how a volunteer school helper was able to make videos of children performing sex acts on school grounds during the school day.
“Our detectives are sifting through leads and are working to identify any possible new locations where abuse or recording may have occurred,” said Julie Parker, a spokeswoman for the county police.
Police initially identified 10 victims in the case, but by Thursday that number had grown to 12, and officials said they think more victims may be identified as their investigation continues.
She continued to urge the public to call 301-772-4930 if they think their children had contact with Deonte Carraway, 22.
Deonte Carraway, 22, of Glenarden had been volunteering at Judge Sylvania W. Woods Elementary in suburban Maryland since September. He has been charged with 10 counts of felony child pornography and has admitted creating dozens of videos, in which he sometimes can be seen or heard directing children ages 9 to 13 to perform sexual acts, police said.
The investigation has broadened in recent days as officials have interviewed more than two dozen families, placed the principal on leave and examined whether any policies on reporting child abuse were breached.
[Child-porn investigation widens at Prince George’s school]
Officials have so far offered few new details about how an unpaid library volunteer in suburban Maryland allegedly managed to make videos of children performing sex acts on school grounds during school hours.
Parents and grandparents filled nearly every folding chair in the multipurpose room at Sylvania Woods on Thursday night. Spanish-speaking parents formed a line to receive headsets translating officials’ remarks, but officials ran out after distributing more than three dozen.
Carraway of Glenarden has been charged with 10 counts of felony child pornography and related charges. He has admitted creating the videos, in which he sometimes can be seen or heard directing children between 9 and 13 years old to perform various sexual acts, police said.
As the program got underway, parents had pointed questions for school personnel and law enforcement officials. A grandparent of three at Sylvania Woods asked how Carraway could have been so unsupervised that he was able to produce the videos at school.
Kevin Maxwell, the school system’s chief executive officer, said at a news conference Wednesday evening that the principal, Michelle Williams, was removed and put on paid leave out of an “abundance of caution” as the investigation at Judge Sylvania W. Woods Elementary School in Glenarden unfolds.
“I have those very same questions about how these things can happen when there are other adults in the school,” schools chief executive Kevin Maxwell said. “I don’t have those answers,” adding that investigators are examining the issue.
The move came just days after the arrest of Carraway, who allegedly produced 40 pornographic videos. Parents are demanding to know how the abuse could have happened and how it could have gone on so long without someone noticing.
Other parents asked about Carraway’s hiring, about background checks for adults in the school, and about efforts to improve security for students in and around school bathrooms. They also asked whether the school system would assist in transferring victimized students to other schools and whether the principal, Michelle Williams, would lose her job.
Maxwell, who vowed to “retrain every employee in the school system,” told parents that anyone found not to have fulfilled their responsibilities will be dealt with accordingly. But he said he could not answer whether Williams would be retained.
Detectives stood shoulder to shoulder against one wall, prepared to share case information with parents. Scott Hinckley of the FBI’s Baltimore field office said that every person in the child sex crimes squad is working the case and will continue following leads to find more victims. “It’s going to take a long time to get to the bottom of this,” Hinckley said.
[‘He always had six or seven kids around. It’s a little strange’]
[‘He always had six or seven kids around. It’s a little strange’]
Maxwell and other county officials said Wednesday that they aren’t able to answer those questions yet.
The meeting came the same day that lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against the county school board on behalf of all current and former students who were allegedly abused by Carraway. School officials have said that Carraway volunteered in the library, but the lawsuit alleges that Carraway told parents he directed the school choir — and that he then used that position to gain access to students, according to the lawsuit.
“When we have the answer, we will be as transparent as we can,” Maxwell said.
In the complaint, a fifth-grade boy alleges that Carraway removed students from classes to exploit them. The boy was part of the choir, which practiced on Friday evenings, the complaint says.
The school system plans to hold an meeting at Sylvania Woods to answer questions from parents on Thursday evening. Police said that so far, the investigation has found that Carraway directly abused seven of the 11 victims and otherwise abused the rest through his actions, without being more specific.
The allegations echo accusations made in a separate lawsuit that was filed Wednesday by the same lawyers on behalf of a 9-year-old boy, also a Sylvania Woods student.
School system officials require background checks for volunteers, but they have not responded to questions about whether there are rules that spell out how volunteers should be supervised or whether adults are allowed to be alone with children.
A spokeswoman for the school system did not immediately respond Thursday evening to requests for a response to the lawsuits.
They also haven’t answered questions about whether any school staff members were aware of suspicious behavior by Carraway before the uncle of a Sylvania Woods student found a nude photo on the child’s cellphone and reported it to police last week.
Besides the school board, both suits name Carraway and Williams, the principal, as defendants.
Long before news broke about the Carraway investigation, the Prince George’s state’s attorney’s office had offered to work with the school system to train staff on how to identify and report child predators.
Williams, who has not responded to e-mailed requests for comment, has been placed on paid leave, a move that schools officials described as a cautionary measure given the ongoing investigation. A representative of the principals union said Wednesday that Williams had immediately reported concerns about Carraway to police and Child Protective Services when she became aware of them.
That offer has not yet been accepted, said Angela Alsobrooks, the county’s top prosecutor, but she said Wednesday that “it is still on the table.”
Anyone who works at a school is required to immediately report suspicions of sexual abuse to the county’s protective services division, and to follow up with a written report within 48 hours, according to the Prince George’s school system’s written procedures.
Alsobrooks said school staff members “absolutely” could be charged if they are found to have failed to report suspicions about Carraway. “We will go as far as our investigation leads us, and we will take action based on what we learn,” the prosecutor said.
Carraway is being held on a $1 million bond. In addition to the videos made at Sylvania Woods, police said recordings occurred at Glenarden Municipal Center, the Theresa Banks Memorial Aquatic Center and in private homes.
School and county officials said they are providing counseling services and other resources to victims and their families and are reminding school staff workers across the district of their duty under Maryland law to report suspicions of child abuse. They have also set up a hotline that anyone can use to report such suspicions.
Carraway’s family released a statement expressing shock and sorrow and promising to continue cooperating with investigators. “As a family who loves him dearly, we must stress that we do not condone the behaviors in question that has victimized numerous families and brought unimaginable fear and sadness to our community as a whole,” the statement said.
“Every child in this county is our baby. And it is our job - it is my job - to protect them from predators like the one we arrested,” County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) said.
“I want you to know that we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that this type of situation doesn’t happen again,” he added.
Some of the video recording and sex abuse took place during the school day at Sylvania Woods Elementary, where Carraway worked as a paid classroom assistant before becoming a volunteer, according to Prince George’s police.
In at least one instance, a student was recorded performing a sex act on Carraway in a school restroom while Carraway recorded it on his orange phone, according to charging documents.
On Wednesday morning, a man at the address listed for Carraway in online records declined to answer questions from a Washington Post reporter. Carraway is being held on $1 million bond.
Carraway’s family released a statement Wednesday night expressing shock and sorrow, and promising to continue cooperating fully with investigators. “As a family who loves him dearly, we must stress that we do not condone the behaviors in question that has victimized numerous families and brought unimaginable fear and sadness to our community as a whole,” the statement said. “Our prayers and thoughts are with the innocent victims and their families during this trying time.”
About 700 students attend Sylvania Woods, almost all of them black and Latino. The vast majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty.
Attempts to reach Williams, the principal, for comment were unsuccessful Wednesday.
Williams reported concerns about Carraway to police and Child Protective Services immediately after becoming aware of them, said Doris Reed, executive director of the Association of Supervisory and Administrative School Personnel, the union for those workers. CPS told the principal that police would handle it, Reed said.
“It’s a horrible situation,” Reed said. “I don’t think anyone can question that, but I hope the administration will not overreact when dealing with the principal.”
Maxwell said that the school system learned of Carraway’s arrest Saturday but did not notify parents until Monday because administrators were still gathering information.
[Elementary school volunteer arrested in child porn investigation]
[Elementary school volunteer arrested in child porn investigation]
On Wednesday afternoon, attorneys for the family of the 9-year-old victim who brought the case to police filed a civil rights lawsuit in Prince George’s County Court against the school system and Carraway.
One grandmother said she allowed her granddaughter to join a choir that Carraway directed two summers ago, after hearing about the group through the school.
The lawsuit says Carraway recorded students performing sex acts in the school auditorium, bathrooms and elsewhere on school property, using his position as a teacher’s assistant to remove students from class and escort them to various locations.
Carraway had worked at the school as a paid classroom assistant from November 2014 until he lost his job for budget reasons and began volunteering.
“Carraway told some of the students, including the Plaintiff, that they would be participating in a ‘club’ with him to help persuade them to engage in these sexual acts on camera,” the lawsuit states.
The grandmother, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her granddaughter, said she didn’t hesitate because the group met at Glenarden Municipal Center, where city and elected officials often work and meet.
The child’s uncle found a nude photo on his nephew’s phone, sent via the anonymous messaging app Kik, according to the complaint.
Carraway would often pick up students to take them to the choir’s Saturday practice sessions, the grandmother said. But the practices, which the grandmother said she often attended, appeared to be disorganized, and the culminating concert fell flat. The next summer, she didn’t allow her granddaughter to participate.
The uncle periodically checks the child’s phone as “an adult being vigilant,” said Dave Simpson, an attorney representing the family of the young victim.
But if the way in which Carraway ran the choir seemed a bit unprofessional, she said, it didn’t prepare her for the crisis that the families of Sylvania Woods are going through now.
The civil case also names Maxwell and Williams. Maxwell said he could not comment because the school system had not yet been served with the complaint.
“I never saw any signs,” the grandmother said. “It is so heartbreaking for the community.”
The Prince George’s school system requires volunteers to undergo one of two kinds of background checks, according to the school system’s website. All employees and volunteers who are likely to have unsupervised contact with children are required to be fingerprinted.
Hamil R. Harris and Donna St. George contributed to this report. Investigators ask anyone with information about this case to call 800-CALL-FBI or 301-772-4930.
Volunteers who work with children only occasionally or who work with them regularly but in supervised settings, such as a classroom, are required to get a less-intensive background check - a search of court records based on written information that the volunteer provides.
Carraway worked for the school system from 2014 until he was laid off for budgetary reasons in September 2015. As a paid employee, he worked as a classroom assistant, said schools spokeswoman Sherrie Johnson. Johnson said that at the time of Carraway’s hiring, a criminal background check was done, as happens with all employees. “It came up with nothing, no criminal history or anything,” she said.
Experts say background checks should be regarded as one part of a comprehensive plan to prevent offenders from gaining access to children at school.
Most child sex offenders don’t have a criminal history and would not be flagged by a background check, said Jennifer Alvaro, a longtime clinician in the field of child sexual abuse who has advocated for safeguards in Montgomery County schools.
Juriese Colon, executive director of outreach for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said that many schools and after-school programs prohibit adults from being alone with children one-on-one; under such a policy, there must be at least two adults present as a “check and balance,” Colon said.
Carraway also made video recordings at Glenarden Municipal Center and the Theresa Banks Memorial Aquatic Center as well as in private homes, according to police.
The Prince George’s division of the Maryland-National Capital Park Police has jurisdiction over the aquatic center.
Acting Chief Stanley Johnson said Carraway, as a Glenarden resident, would have had access to the aquatic center with an activity card that all local residents are required to use to enter.
The last time the agency recorded Carraway entering the pool with an identification card was in 2014. It has no record of him entering the facility since then, but “there is a possibility that someone can be part of a program or special event and might gain access,” Johnson added.
If Carraway was working with the school system, Johnson said, he could have had access to the facility through a swim program it offers as part of a partnership with the county parks department.
Hamil R. Harris and Arelis R. Hernández contributed to this report. Investigators ask anyone with information about this case to call 800-CALL-FBI or 301-772-4930.
