Warrant: Educators ignored abuse by teacher for years
PLYMOUTH — One fourthgrade girl told police that her male teacher, James Eschert, started “touching my thigh which was really weird,” according to court papers.
The girl’s mother complained to Principal Sherri Turner and also reported that her daughter had come home every day for the first month of school with a gift from Eschert — sometimes it was a Beanie Baby stuffed animal, other times it was whatever was trendy for young girls, the mother told police.
The girl and a friend, called V2 in court documents, personally went to Turner several times, she said. “He was touching us inappropriately and we want you do to something about it,” they would tell the principal.
“We said that every week and she did nothing about it,” the girl told police. “She just said ‘we’ll work on it’ and she did nothing.”
The four Plymouth educators charged with failing to report alleged sexual abuse by fourthgrade teacher James Eschert ignored his behavior for years, according to arrest warrants released Tuesday.
The documents reveal a massive cover-up that included multiple educators telling parents that Eschert’s behavior and the allegations children reported against him were a “misunderstanding.”
Turner, 59, Crystal Collins, 59, Melissa Morelli, 45, and Rebecca Holleran, 48, were charged by warrant last week with failure to report the abuse, neglect or injury of a child or imminent risk of serious harm to a child. All four were released on a promise to appear for dates in the Superior Court of New Britain on Sept. 7 and Sept. 12.
As educators and administrators in Connecticut, the four were required by law to report allegations of abuse against children. But arrest warrants indicate that they were aware that children and parents had repeatedly complained about Eschert’s behavior but chose to do nothing.
“How did this go on for so long?” said one parent who spoke to police about Morelli’s role in covering for Eschert. The woman made the observation during an interview with police in December that, “if this is coming out now, you’re no going to tell me they were the first kids” to be abused.
The warrant for Morelli’s arrest also states that the state Department of Education conducted an investigation of Eschert with regard to him giving standardize test answers to female students. There was not one document in his employment file that indicated he was under scrutiny by state officials and there was no documentation of the repeated complaints by parents and students about his behavior, Morelli’s warrant said.
When the state Department of Children and Families was finally notified about Eschert, state officials concluded that rather than attempting to investigate themselves, the administrators did nothing, the warrant said.
“It was as if they didn’t want to look into and/or investigate the allegations regarding Mr. Eschert,” a DCF official told police.
Following the arrests, the state Office of the Child Advocate is now working to educate school systems on the importance of identifying and reporting allegations of sexual abuse. State Child Advocate Sarah Eagan is calling on legislators to require students seeking teaching certification to be trained in adult sexual misconduct awareness and prevention.
Eagan is also recommending that the state form a working group to put together a strategic tool kit for schools to deal with adult sexual misconduct. “Failure to report sexual abuse may well be a symptom of broader system weaknesses around prevention, detection and response,” Eagan said in a statement issued Tuesday.
A new principal at a separate middle school finally reported the allegations against Eschert to DCF in September of 2021, police said. More than a dozen young female students were identified as victims,
the warrant for Holleran said.
One girl identified as V9 in the arrest warrant for Collins told her mother that Eschert had said to her that he was going to “make sure you’re in my class next year.” “He picked the girls he wanted,” V9’s mother told police. She also said that Collins knew. “Now you are knowingly putting them in this situation,” the mother told investigators. “Either Mrs. Collins was turning a blind eye or was ignorant to the situation,” the mother said.
One child, identified as V13, told her mother that Eschert was putting girls on his lap and bribing them with candy, police said. The mother called the school and asked to speak with Holleran, an arrest warrant said. The mother told Holleran what her daughter had observed. Holleran promised to speak to the children, the mother said.
Holleran then called her back and said it was a ‘misunderstanding,” the mother told police. “A child sitting on a man’s lap is not a misunderstanding, especially in school,” the mother told investigators.
A DCF employee assigned to the case told investigators that the new Superintendent of Schools Brian Falcone had “expressed disgust that all of this may have been covered up.”
Falcone took the superintendent position in July 2021 and told police “it sounds like all of this predates his position and that it has been going on for years,” a warrant charging Eschert with crimes against children said.
Eschert, 51, was arrested in January on five counts of risk of injury to a minor and two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault. His arrest warrant alleges that more than a dozen of his former female students at Plymouth Center
School who were interviewed by police told investigators that he would pull students onto his lap, rub their shoulders to check if they were wearing bras and took pictures pictures up their skirts.
Eschert was placed on leave on Sept. 24, 2021. He resigned from his position on Nov. 9, 2021, Falcone said.
The parents and students told police they voiced their concerns numerous times to administrators and teachers, but nothing was ever done, the warrant for Eschert stated.
A separate lawsuit filed by one of his former students in June claims that teachers had witnessed Eschert place his hands inside students’ clothing and other inappropriate behavior and that the plaintiff, “Jane Doe,” was sexually abused, sexually assaulted and sexually exploited during the school day.
As a result, the young woman’s ability to “enjoy her childhood, adolescence and adult years has been impaired.” The young woman, who was in Eschert’s fourth grade class in 2017, suffered “several emotional injuries” including emotional distress, low self-esteem, mistrust, anger, depression, and “intrusive recollections of the abuse” and may be forced to “expend sums of money for psychological therapy and medical treatment in the future.”
The lawsuit contends that the school system and its educators failed to properly monitor Eschert, failed to investigate his activities and failed to recognize that a member of their staff “had an unnatural interest in young girls.”
The lawsuit which was filed against the school board, the town, Eschert and Collins, states that as principal, she should have “known” that Eschert “was being physically and socially inappropriate with children at Plymouth
Center School including touching them inappropriately.”
Turner was a former principal at Plymouth Center School and Morelli was a mathematics interventionalist for the 2021-2002 school year. Turner was placed on leave on Nov. 5, 2021, while Morelli was placed on leave on April 12, 2022, school officials said.
Holleran was the head teacher and a mathematics coach/interventionist for the 2021-22 school year, according to the student and parent handbook. She
was placed on leave on Nov. 5, 2021, Falcone told Hearst Connecticut Media Group. Collins, a former principal of Plymouth Center School, has been retired.
Falcone said Plymouth Public School employees are required to report allegations of abuse or neglect of children to the DCF for investigation.
“Failure to do so is inconsistent with the law and our district policies, and will not be tolerated,” he said. “As a school district, the
safety and well-being of our students will always be our top priority, and we affirm our commitment to protect our children and act in their best interest.”
The girl identified as “V2” told investigators that “Mr. E” would ask them to sit in his lap and he would play with their hair. He would also ask her and a few others to stay indoors with him for “fun Fridays” while the other children went outside with the class paraprofessional. She told Turner, the girl said, but the principal “did nothing about it.”
At one point Turner told a parent “this was a misunderstanding and Mr. E was her friend and he would never do that,” an arrest warrant said.
According to Eschert’s arrest warrant, Falcone told police he was concerned that Turner knew about the conduct and didn’t report it. Turner had allegedly gone to Falcone “to ask if someone will file a failure to report on her,” the warrant stated.