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Prosecutors say former band director had 7 sexual encounters with boy over a two-year period - By Chris W. Colby - Monday, October 23, 2006
 

COLLIER COUNTY- The 12-year-old boy was in a gay-oriented chat room because he was curious, and he was seeking advice.  Then a Pine Ridge Middle School student, the boy was unsure of himself. In particular, he wasn't certain of his own sexuality. It was in that gay-oriented chatroom, according to court records, the seventh-grade student was approached by Jeffrey Mark Branson.

Branson was the Barron Collier High School band director. The encounters online — there were several, the boy and later Branson told investigators — led to encounters in person.

And court records obtained from the State Attorney's Office in Naples as prosecutors prepare for Branson's scheduled trial Tuesday say the encounters continued inside a North Naples hotel room.

In the room at the Spinnaker Inn, the boy lost his virginity. Branson began "hitting on me," leading to sexual intercourse, according to court records. It was the first of at least seven encounters over about two years alleged by prosecutors.

Branson, 36, faces up to 15 years in prison on each of nine counts against him — seven counts of lewd battery and two counts of lewd molestation. A six-member Collier County Circuit Court jury would decide Branson's guilt or innocence if the case goes to trial, which is expected to last about a week.

He has pleaded innocent to all the charges. His attorney, Jerry Berry, said Friday he wouldn't make any comments on his client's behalf.

Branson
Although the trial is set to begin Tuesday, several other cases also are scheduled, so Branson's could be postponed. Or he could enter into a plea agreement with state prosecutor Steve Maresca.

Maresca was unavailable for comment Friday.

Branson has been out of jail since his arrest July 8, 2005, released on $250,000 bond.

The court records in the case include transcripts of two tape-recorded statements Branson made to Collier County schools officials and a statement from the boy to school and child-advocacy investigators. The boy's name won't be published because he's identified as the victim in a sex-crime case.

The records show Branson initially denied any improper contact with the boy in a first interview, Feb. 1, 2005, with Allun Hamblett, the Collier County School District human resources director. Branson contended he barely knew the boy and said he encountered him only through their mutual involvement with the music program at North Naples United Methodist Church.

But according to the boy's statement, he identified Branson's car. He drew an accurate floor map of the inside of Branson's condominium. He even identified physical descriptions of Branson's body, including a scar from an appendectomy on the right side of his lower abdomen.

Branson said he knew all of those were inappropriate and could get him into trouble.

"I was so afraid, but I was more afraid that he was going to out me as being gay than anything. It wasn't like, he never threatened to do that. But in my mind, I'm like, maybe I better talk to this kid because what if he tells (current Superintendent Ray) Baker I'm gay. So I sort of, so I did what he wanted," Branson said.

Branson told investigators the boy wanted advice on his growing feelings of homosexuality.

"And he asked me to meet, and I said no, definitely not. And he begged, and he said, 'I got to talk to somebody about being gay.' And I said you're probably not. And he just begged and begged. ... He just was going to kill himself, that he's just beside himself, and I did a stupid thing. I did meet with him," Branson said.

Branson said the boy wanted to go to a hotel. Branson said he refused. But the court record includes printouts of four receipts at the Spinnaker Inn, 6600 Dudley Drive, starting Jan. 1, 2004, and continuing to Jan. 22, 2005. Branson paid in cash three times and by American Express once.

"It was a friendship only. Not even a friendship. It was more or less, 'Can you talk to me, can you help me out?' I wouldn't say I was his friend," Branson said.

But the Child Advocacy Center's forensic interview summary detailing the boy's statement emphasizes the mutual nature of the sexual contact.

The relationship had come to light in February 2005 when an anonymous letter was delivered to Branson, the boy's parents and several School District officials. By then, the boy had cut off the relationship but had told several friends about it, and rumors had spread around Barron Collier High, where he was a student and Branson was a history teacher and band director. The letter said a sexual relationship was going on and should be stopped.

According to the victim advocate interview, the boy described his first conversations with Branson. He said he told Branson, who claimed to be a banker, that "he was a virgin and was confused about his sexuality."

"He reported Mr. Branson told him about his sexual likes, fetishes and history," according to the summary report.

Branson arranged meetings on the Internet at night. Branson asked him when he was taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test as a way of proving the boy was really a student and not an undercover agent. Within a few days the boy agreed to sneak out of his home around midnight for a face-to-face encounter.

The two checked into the Spinnaker Inn under Branson's name, entered a room, and started watching TV.

"Then Mr. Branson began hitting on him, and that they did intercourse," according to the report. "He stated he was told not to tell because he would get into trouble and that (Branson) did not like doing it because he was religious."

The two met seven or eight times in total. Branson used a condom in all but one sexual encounter, according to the victim advocate's report. At least one of the encounters took place at the boy's home.

At one point Branson took him to Branson's home, 2815 Sailors Way, North Naples, and his roommate came home unexpectedly. The roommate became angry and asked Branson if he was a pedophile, which is an adult who has sexual contact with children. Branson and the boy left soon after.

According to the school investigation report, the boy had to coax Branson into some of the sexual contact several times.

"Did you feel pressure by Mr. Branson?" Hamblett asked.

"Not really. Most of the time I had to ask him, convince him, because he would be too scared, and then he would just say OK, and he got into it after a while," the boy said.

In Branson's statement, he repeatedly admitted he acted inappropriately, and he can't really rebut the boy's allegations, even as he insisted they were untrue. He resigned a week later.

"I mean, this is damning stuff to a reputation. Even if there's no sex involved, it's still damning stuff. That I would have a student in my house, you know, unaccompanied. That I would ride around with, that I picked him up on the road," Branson said.

"And it is disheartening, and it's stupid choices and mistakes. And I don't have any idea why he would say the relationship was sexual other than I don't think he's out to ruin me. I don't think he's that kind of person. I think it's just he talked to somebody or said something, just being silly, and then the lie built on him," Branson said.

After his arrest, Branson invoked his right to remain silent after consultation with his attorney.

Lee County, Florida - TIME-OUT ROOMS EXPOSED
Problems exposed by WINK News Investigation - By Lois Thome, WINK News

Lee County - Parents upset about the use of time-out rooms in Lee County schools, accused the board on Tuesday night of condoning abuse with their lack of action.

The parents cited a WINK News investigation that exposed the use of time out rooms to calm students acting out in class. In the WINK News report, 3 parents relayed similar stories. The parents claim their special needs children were locked in the rooms, and at times restrained. The parents say the isolation rooms are inhumane and dangerous for special need kids who 
might injure themselves.

Diane Swasey, a concerned citizen, told board members she was speaking on behalf of several parents, afraid to go before the board out of fear of retaliation.

Swasey says, "The abuse this board and the superintendent has condoned is reprehensible. The expose on WINK shows only the tip of the iceberg."

After hearing the parents concerns board member Bob Chilmonik made a motion calling for an independent investigation into the use of time out rooms in Lee County Schools.

"We need to look at it independently...with experts from outside, to take a fresh look at it to protect our children and employees."

But Chilmonik's motion did not get support from the other members of the board.

Instead board member Elinor Scricca asked the superintendent to look into the time out issue and report back to the board.

Palm Beach teacher accused of having sex with teens arrested in Immokalee
By Daily News staff - September 20, 2007

A Palm Beach County drama teacher accused of having sex with two 17-year-old students was found in an Immokalee motel room and arrested Thursday afternoon.

Authorities with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office have been searching for Boynton Beach resident Andrew Foster, 27, since Sept. 4 when he went on the run after initially being accused. According to police reports, Foster got one girl pregnant and then took her to an abortion clinic.

Foster was located at a Budget Inn at 504 East Main Street, where we was taken into custody without incident, reports show. Foster is charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor, child abuse, transmission of pornography by electronic device and transmission of harmful materials to minors. He was transported to the Palm Beach County jail.

With the prosecutor seeking about 30 years in prison, the former Barron Collier High School band director charged with having sex with a 12-year-old boy he met on the Internet is set to take his case to trial.

During a hearing today in Collier County Circuit Court, Jeffry Mark Branson, 46, had his case set for trial Oct. 24.

Branson, was arrested July 8, 2005, on a warrant charging him with seven counts of lewd or lascivious battery/sexual act with a person 12 to 15 years old and two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation with a victim 12 to 16 years old.

The sexual contact between Branson and the boy is alleged to have occurred between October 2002 and December 2003, according to Collier County Sheriff’s Office investigators.

Investigators said Branson met with the boy, who was in middle school at the time and lived in Collier County. All of the charges relate to allegations of crimes involving the boy and not any high school students or members of the band.

But district officers removed him from his job about five months before his arrest. He had served for 20 years as the school’s band director.

Grotberg, 30, is charged with having sex with a 14-year-old girl while he was working as a Collier County school bus driver. His girlfriend, Lillian Brown, 27, also a former bus driver, pleaded no contest to 19 felony charges alleging she also had sex with the girl and videotaped many of the encounters among the 14-year-old, herself and Grotberg.

The 14-year-old girl was a Pine Ridge Middle School student on Brown’s route. One of the sexual assaults is alleged to have occurred on one of the buses while parked on school property.

According to court records, the sexual conduct involving the girl, whose name won’t be published because of the nature of the case, took place 30 to 40 times in numerous places, including in a hotel room at Sea World in Orlando and at Grotberg’s residence. Court records describe Brown and Grotberg repeatedly taking photos of the girl while she was having sex.

Grotberg, of 7655 Tara Circle, confessed to the sexual conduct, according to court records. He and Brown, 350 Buchanan St., were arrested Jan. 9, 2004.

A former Golden Gate High School soccer coach is charged with having sex with an underage female student, with their alleged trysts taking place several times in his office during school hours, according to court records.

Juan Manuel Cancino, 26, 749 Landover Circle, Apt. 1202, Golden Gate, was arrested April 26. Deputies obtained an arrest warrant eight months after the girl, who has since graduated from the school, made a taped complaint to Collier County Sheriff's Office investigators.

When he was arrested, Cancino had already resigned as an assistant girls soccer coach and a computer technician after the 2005 school year ended.

He could face up to 30 years in prison on each of three sexual battery charges and an additional 15 years on each of two unlawful sexual activity with a minor charges.

Investigators then questioned the girl, who said she was 16 the first time the sexual contact happened with Cancino.

He had been calling her during Christmas break 2004, and she began helping him in the computer lab. He first kissed her in his office in the media center, with their first sexual encounter happening there soon after, on Jan. 28, 2005, during school hours.

"(The girl) reported that Cancino told her it was wrong, they shouldn't be doing it, that if they kept doing that 'stuff' he could lose his job, go to jail and she would not be able to graduate. But they didn't stop," according to the arrest affidavit.

They also had sex at her house after she graduated in June, the girl said. She was still 17 at the time. She told the investigators the two had sex on her bed around 10 a.m. while her parents were at work.

Immokalee High School Principal Manny Touron said in an e-mail that he knew about a 23-year-old student in October, seven months before the student was removed from the school for being too old.

In the e-mail to Eric Williams, the assistant superintendent for secondary schools, Touron said he was informed in October when Collier County Sheriff’s Cpl. Josh Pence, the youth resource officer at Immokalee High School, found that a 23-year-old man posing as a student was accused of harassing a student.

The victim, 19-year-old David Boyer, told Pence he was being harassed by a student who was actually 24. When Pence approached the student, "(he) was slow to admit his true age," according to reports.

EAST MANATEE - Manatee County sheriff's detectives have not found evidence that a Lakewood Ranch High School teacher's assistant inappropriately touched the daughter of a man who punched him in the face earlier this week, according to a sheriff's office representative.

Teacher's assistant Deondrick W. Mathis, who was put on paid administrative leave after David Fulton Swafford hit him Tuesday, told investigators that he put his hand on Swafford's daughter's arm as class was being dismissed Jan. 19, according to Bristow, who did not disclose why Mathis touched the student.

Prior to being hired at Lakewood Ranch High in 2002, Mathis was a counselor with the Department of Children and Families from 1996 to 1999. He worked at Daughtrey Elementary School from August 1999 to October 1999, and he also worked at Manatee Palms, a mental health facility for juveniles, in 2003, but was terminated, according to court records.

Mathis was fired by Manatee Palms officials Sept. 10, 2003. Following his termination, he damaged numerous doors in the building, confronted another employee and was charged with criminal mischief, a first-degree misdemeanor for which a judge later withheld adjudication, according to court records. ......

Erica Rodriguez and Michael Barber, Herald Staff Writers, contributed to this story.

Two law firms that employed a teen who has accused the late Nelson Faerber of sexually assaulting him filed legal papers this week to dismiss a federal lawsuit seeking $10 million.

Faerber was a prominent criminal defense attorney who served 14 years on the Collier County School Board. In April 2004, he was arrested on criminal sex charges involving the teen. Faerber, 52, a senior partner from April 1, 2003, until May 4, 2004, was removed from his law firm shortly after his arrest. He denied his guilt, entered a plea of innocent at his arraignment in Collier County Circuit Court, but committed suicide three months later, citing the embarrassment the allegations had caused his family. See full story

School employee charged for sex with minor

IMMOKALEE — Deputies arrested a Collier County School District employee on charges of having sex with a minor.

Flores was booked in the Immokalee Jail without bond

Lori Januska of San Carlos Park filed suit this week against Bonita Springs Charter School after she said her 5-year-old daughter, Heather, clogged the toilet Sept. 22, 2004, and her teacher made her remove the clog "in front of the entire class."

Wednesday June 30, 2004 

NEW YORK  Friday, July 02, 2004 — If Debra Lafave is convicted of sexual misconduct and lewd exhibition, the middle school teacher will be part of a frightening trend: A report to Congress Wednesday found that one in every 10 school-age kids endures sexual misconduct by a teacher or other school employee.

ALSO SEE CRIME SHOTS

Cocoa police arrested a veteran teacher over the weekend and charged him with molesting a student nearly 100 times. Cliatt is accused of raping a 13-year-old repeatedly after school, at school, every day for months.

The Jackson family of a 12-year-old special education student, who was paddled in her school last fall, has filed a $3 million claim against the Clarke County School Board, contending the child's rights were violated.

KISSIMMEE — A principal and a school district investigator won't be prosecuted for failing to report a teacher's suspected molestation of four students.

Charges filed last May against Kissimmee Elementary principal Kenneth Meyers and Sonia Drudge of the Osceola County School District were thrown out Tuesday after a judge ruled state law did not require them to immediately report the suspected abuse to a state hotline.

The reason: The suspected abuser, Matthew Rossillo, was a teacher and not a parent or guardian.

Osceola County Judge Jon Morgan cited a 1993 change removing a requirement that suspected abuse by public-school employees be reported to the state Department of Children & Families hotline. The law does require suspected abuse by private-school teachers to be reported immediately, according to Morgan.

Meyers, Drudge and a third district official were charged with one misdemeanor count of failing to report the abuse after Kissimmee police said authorities weren't notified until three days after allegations were made that a second-grade teacher molested girls in his classroom.

Charges against human-resources director Lissa Bobet were dropped in September after she completed a diversion program. Bobet resigned in January.

Rossillo, 26, faces four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under age 12 and is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 2.

Video of Teacher : Kathleen Garrett

 A six-month investigation that was launched after a Seminole County teacher was accused of abusing her special-needs students faults the actions of several school district employees.

He cited two principals, two assistant principals and two teachers' aides for not doing their job because they did not report suspected child abuse to Florida's Department of Children and Families. Two other teaching aides, who first brought the allegations to light, were mildly chastised for not coming forward sooner.

Garrett has been accused of slamming one child's head onto a desk, breaking his front teeth. 

One of those employees cited is Richard Mossman, the former principal of South Seminole Middle School, the place where Garrett last worked.

He said that he "did not feel a need to dig deeper into Ms. Garrett's past" after she was transferred to his school

"If something were to happen tomorrow, the first person that I would call would be the news media; it wouldn't be in the school district because I don't have any faith that if I was to contact the school district that anything would be done unless these (TV) lights were shining on them," said Carol Goings.

The school district has instructed the state Department of Education to look into the teaching credentials of the employees named in the report who are currently employed. Three of those named have already retired

A 42-year-old Florida teacher is convicted of having an 18-month relationship with a 14-year-old, she won't be the first female teacher in the nation to have become illegally involved with a student.

Denise McBryde, a 38-year-old Florida teacher was accused in 1998 of having a relationship with a 15-year-old student. A middle school teacher with three children who was charged with three counts of lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act on a child.

Five students said volunteer teacher's aide Ivonne Nieves bound the children at various times, and that teacher Vonda Christie saw what happened but did nothing, police said.

A small but dangerous contingent of sexual predators lurks among the dedicated teachers in our nation's classrooms

Jon E. Dougherty, Newsmax Monday, Apr. 05, 2004 According to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, in compliance with the 2002 "No Child Left Behind" act signed into law by President Bush, between 6 percent and 10 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers.

WASHINGTON — More than 4.5 million children are forced to endure sexual misconduct by school employees, from inappropriate comments to physical abuse, according to an exhaustive review of research that reads like a parent's worst nightmare.

The best estimate is that almost one in 10 children, sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade, are targets of behavior ranging from unprofessional to criminal, says the report for Congress by Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University's School of Education

"Most people just don't think this can really happen," said Shakeshaft, hired by the Education Department (search) to study the prevalence of sexual abuse in schools. "We imagine that all teachers are like most teachers, in that they've gone into teaching to help children. Most do, but not all. We need to acknowledge that's the case and do something to stop it."

The report, required under the No Child Left Behind (search) law and delivered to Congress on Wednesday, is the first to analyze the field of research about sexual misconduct at school.

Some educators immediately took issue with its approach, mainly the combining of sexual abuse with other behavior, such as gestures or notes, into one broad misconduct category.

CASSELBERRY, Fla. -- The accusations in this case are disturbing. Autistic children forced to do their schoolwork in a bathroom, and even a blind child being punished by being put into a closet. These charges were so serious that the police have taken over the investigation.