New York Daily News

This Daily News Investigative Team series was reported and written by Staff Writers GREG B. SMITH, ROBERT GEARTY and BENJAMIN LESSER, and Assistant Managing Editor RICHARD T. PIENCIAK

NYC

According to legal papers and limited Department of Education data, victims of school bus sexual abuse were male and female and ranged in age from 5 to 19.

The molestations include the "rubbing of private parts," "oral sex and sodomy," and rape - almost always committed within the presence and supposed supervision of drivers and bus monitors hired to protect school-children.

A four-month Daily News investigation into the troubled network that transports 142,000 New York City public and private school students daily has documented a secret history of physical and emotional abuse, from broken bones to shattered psyches.

But the most gutwrenching, nauseating behavior uncovered has been sexual in nature.

On many occasions, the sexual abuse victims have been especially vulnerable special-needs students, mercilessly violated within a transportation system designed to protect those most at risk.

"Automatically I think, 'It's a school bus.' I expect whatever children are on the bus to be safe," said the mother of a 10-year-old girl who was sexually abused on her way to school in Boro Park, Brooklyn. "I don't think a 10-year-old should have a sexual experience on a school bus."g to settled and pending lawsuits, notices of intent to sue and limited Department of Education records obtained by The News under the Freedom of Information Law, there have been at least 22 complaints of serious sexual abuse on school buses in the past decade, 10 since July 2003. All but two were discovered independently by The News.

Nineteen of the incidents involved accusations of students molesting other students in the presence of drivers and/or monitors. Two other cases implicated drivers; a third involved a bus monitor.

A lawsuit against one driver and his bus company was settled in September 2004 for $1 million. The Brooklyn district attorney's office investigated but declined to prosecute.

A settlement in the other bus driver lawsuit has been sealed. The driver was charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and harassment, and pleaded guilty to harassment, according to state court records.

Of the remaining completed cases, one involved a jury award of $150,000; another victim won a $210,000 settlement in November 2005.

The family of a 19-year-old Down syndrome woman from Public School 721 in Elmhurst, Queens, has notified the city it intends to sue for a July 2006 sexual abuse allegation involving a male bus monitor. The family of a 12-year-old girl who says she was molested on her way home from Public School 109 in East Flat-bush, Brooklyn, last May also plans to sue.

Fourteen of the cases are the subjects of pending lawsuits, while the final two were internal complaints, from October 2005 and last February, that were substantiated by the Department of Education.

Because all of the student offenders were juveniles, The News could not ascertain the outcome of any criminal prosecutions. A law enforcement source said the bus monitor is under investigation, but has not been arrested...

Whatever the statistical tabulation, the numbers are outrageous by their mere existence - children being sexually assaulted within the cramped confines of school buses while they are supposedly being protected by one or two adults who are specifically charged with super-vising and maintaining order on the buses.

"Anyone whose child is involved doesn't think any level is acceptable," said Matthew Lenaghan, deputy director of Advocates for Children of New York. "If they say there's millions of kids on buses and there are only two incidents, well, talk to someone's parent, and see how they feel."

That's precisely the outrage and insecurity such incidents provoke in victims and their families.

"When I put him on the bus, I felt safe. I trusted the whole system," said the mother of a 5-year-old boy who was sexually abused on a bus in July 2003 and whose lawsuit is still pending. "I never thought something like that would happen."

The full extent of the problem is uncertain because the Department of Education has resisted and delayed in providing The News all of the pertinent documents that it has requested under the Freedom of Information Law.

Still, in lawsuit after lawsuit, The News learned of claims that bus monitors, who are required on all buses for special-needs students, had seen nothing, heard nothing or were not even on the bus when serious acts of sexual abuse were committed. Many of the case files also contained claims from drivers that they, too, had been oblivious to the behavior taking place aboard their vehicles.

As part of its investigation, The News noticed that the two 2006 cases where families say they intend to sue the city were not included in the package of 2006 substantiated complaints handed over under the Freedom of Information Law.

The Department of Education contended that those two cases had been found to be "either unsubstantiated, unfounded or not in violation of rules and regulations."

The Department of Education's Law Department has specifically ruled that it will provide no specific information about unsubstantiated complaints, citing privacy concerns.

For 2006 and 2005, the department has produced only partial records from 337 of 604 substantiated complaints. No records have been produced for 2001 to 2004.

Overall, The News is missing at least 1,218 substantiated complaints for the six years requested under FOIL.

As a result, The News could not determine if any of the missing complaints pertain to sexual abuse or if incidents involved in most of the sexual abuse lawsuits found by The News have ever been investigated by school authorities.

Plus, The News has uncovered serious questions about the accuracy of Department of Education recordkeeping, suggesting that the overall number of abuse complaints could have been underreported. the slow pace of sexual abuse civil lawsuits through the court system was particularly striking, with case after case dragging on for years. Compensation for victims can take a long time to come as well. the News found older case after older case still pending - from October 2000, December 2000, May 2001 and November 2001. the $1 million driver lawsuit, filed in 1998, took six years to settle; the $210,000 settlement took seven years, records show. several lawyers involved in longrunning cases say the Department of Education often refuses to turn over documents, shifting the blame to the private bus companies, who employ the drivers and monitors.

"Getting documents from the city is very difficult, especially the Department of Education," said attorney David Kapelman, who has several pending school bus sexual abuse lawsuits dating to 2003. He noted that all major city cases take longer because "there's a much longer backlog in the city part for trials." attorney Ruth Bernstein, who won the $1 million settlement, recalled her six-year court fight on behalf of a female teen with a disability similar to cerebral palsy who had been sexually abused repeatedly by a driver.

Ultimately, the lawyer said, the settlement was paid by the city government and the bus company's insurer.

During that time, Bernstein said, "the city kept saying 'we're not in the case,' and they never provided us any documents or witnesses."

Comments (0)

Write comment

You must be logged in to post a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.