Preschool, ex-teacher face 2nd sex abuse suit

A second family who has accused a former preschool teacher at a Baldwin Park daycare center of sexually assaulting their son filed a lawsuit this week against the teacher and the center where they say the abuse happened during nap times and in the bathrooms.

“What these boys are alleging is as dark as it gets in terms of sexual abuse,” lawyer Jeff Herman said Wednesday morning outside Bright Horizons at Baldwin Park.

Herman, who represents the families of two boys, ages 3 and 4, filed a second lawsuit Tuesday against preschool teacher Jayrico Hamilton and Bright Horizons Children’s Centers. The first lawsuit was filed June 1. The boys in the suits were in the same preschool class, he said.

Neither family is named in the court documents.

Hamilton, 28, has not been charged with any crime. The Florida Department of Children and Families is investigating, said agency spokesman David Ocasio.

Cheney Mason, Hamilton’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment. Hamilton’s lawyer requested a judge’s dismissal of the first suit, citing flaws with the lawsuit.

The lawsuits also accuse Bright Horizons Children’s Centers of failing to protect children by ignoring concerns brought by another teacher and doing an insufficient check of Hamilton’s references and social media accounts. Another teacher was removed from Hamilton’s classroom after reporting to the center director concerns that Hamilton was inappropriately touching children and “grooming” them, according to the lawsuits.

Bridget Perry, a spokeswoman for Bright Horizons, said the daycare center staff has been cooperating with the Department of Children and Families since a “situation” was reported to the daycare in May. Hamilton was terminated May 18.

“We have been communicating with families at the center throughout this process,” she said in an emailed statement.

“We have no information that there are any developments in the investigation being conducted by the authorities,” Perry said.

The daycare center’s lawyer, Gregory Prusak, did not respond to calls seeking comment. In a legal document filed last week in response to the first lawsuit, he asked a judge to dismiss the suit, claiming several reasons the complaints against Bright Horizons are insufficient.

“In summary, the Complaint … fails to demonstrate a sufficient statement of facts which shows that the alleged sexual battery allegedly committed by Jayrico Hamilton was foreseeable at Bright Horizons or that it had a legal duty to conduct an ongoing background check to search the social media sites of all of its employees,” the suit states.

Hamilton does not have a criminal history in Florida. According to the lawsuits, Bright Horizons hired him in September 2016.

Before moving to Florida, Hamilton was fired from his teaching position at a Navy Child Development Center in Virginia, according to the lawsuits. Court records in Virginia show Hamilton was convicted of making a bomb threat in 2012.

The boys have been undergoing therapy, Herman said. The lawyer said he’s heard from other families and said more lawsuits are possible.