Posted on 05/15/2011 11:51:00 AM PDT by rawhide
A PE teacher falsely accused of molesting a 12-year-old schoolgirl has spoken of his pain at telling his children he was going to be arrested.
Sean Lanigan was pulled out of a class in Fairfax, Virginia, and told he was going to be arrested for allegedly carrying out the offences.
In reality his 'crimes' had been invented and the schoolgirl bore a grudge against him.
Despite being cleared of all the offences, the teacher’s $125,000 legal fees still haven’t been repaid by the state and he is struggling to get his life back.
The young girl claimed that the teacher had taken him into the gym and said he was going to ‘treat her like a Queen’ and briefly groped her.
This line, it turns out is a lyric from one or her favourite music bands, the Ataris.
He had told his ‘victim’ off for being abusive on the school bus and the girl apparently told her friends: ‘Mr Lanigan’s a jerk. I’m going to make him pay.’
When it came to trial, the jury took only 47 minutes to decide he was not guilty. Such a short deliberation in a child sex abuse case is extremely rare.
They described it as an ‘easy decision’ since ‘there was no evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
just out of curiosity, where is his teachers union? You'd think this would be an important benefit, a far better use of dues than political contributions.
“...Hillary along with Karl Marx and a whole lot of conditioned world citizens advocate, re-allocate all responsibility to the “village.”...”
Hey, I had a freeper call me an apologist for public schools because I argued that parents are responsible for the educations, or lack thereof of their children. People of all persuasions like to play the blame game. Schools ruin our children, or television, the internet, or the neighbors, our culture, our churches, malls, Walmarts, too much, too little, but it is never the parents who are responsible for kids who fail academically, morally, emotionally or socially. I say home school. Let others play these games.
Sad. Very, sad.
Agree with both of you.
He teaches in Virginia, a Right to Work state. He may not be a member of a union since we teachers are not required to be in one.
I'm not in a union either, but stories like this make me rethink my decision all the time. Losing your house is a pretty big risk. I just try to be careful to never, EVER be alone with a child and never, EVER touch one, even a pat on the back to say 'good job' is completely out of the question.
All it takes is for one of these kids to accuse me of something I didn't do (to get back at me for some slight) and my life is immediately destroyed forever like this guy's was. Many kids realize they have this kind of power as well and that is why so many adults are afraid to discipline children or hold them accountable for anything.
The famous Fells Acre case occurred only a few miles from my home. In that case, an entire family was destroyed on the basis of accusations that were never proven. The Amiraults were convicted in court with no physical evidence whatsoever because any allegation of child abuse brings out the "witch hunt" factor in our society. They were all quietly released from prison many years after their innocence became obvious. This delay was on account of the fact that nobody involved in the original trial wanted to admit they made such a horrible mistake and no politician had the guts to vouch for their pardon.
It's a pretty risk-free way to eff with a man in a very serious way.
Absolutely the truth. Last summer, I went to a weekend barbeque with some of the guys at work. Guys only. We roasted a pig and everything. Had a blast. We got to know more about each other in that few hours than in years of working together. We found out that we actually had personalities and knew how to have a good time. Come Monday morning, we went right back to being the robots that we are forced to be, lest some female co-worker file an HR complaint against us. It doesn't have to even be sexual. One co-worker had an HR complaint against him (filed by a woman) because he slammed his office door. The complaint was that he was creating an "hostile" work environment.
Now I'm sure that the majority of women employees just want to fit in with the culture and aren't interested in filing gratuitous HR complaints. But as a man, you can't take any women co-worker for granted. TRUST NO ONE!
Men are a vanishing breed in primary education. However there are just as many "sexual abuse" charges made against women by students of either sex, or parents which don't hold up on subsequent investigation. I'm convinced that kids get the idea from TV and use it as a hammer when they don't get their way from an "authority figure". Parents on the other hand believe their kids over anyone else and any accusation is taken at face value.
Regards,
GtG
Hopefully sanity will be restored.
Best to not get revenge through private parties.
Just sue the school since they knowingly acted as "agent" for the girl and should have known her story was false. Do personal suits against the personnel at the school.
I'd imagine his lawyer has already laid out the gameplan for that for his consideration.
I don't think you can start a more acrimonious and distressing defense than that ~ make your company (or government agency) pay for it.
How would insisting that the accuser prove her sex help?I'm not trying to be silly... I really want to know.
“The girl should be locked up untill she is 18.”
...until she is 78. There, fixed.
National hysteria which has its adherents here.
I wonder if the news of the initial accusation had a thread on FR.
You’d see what I mean.
This is typical under the Bloomberg Reign of Terror. A friend of mine was put into the Rubber Room on the basis of simply repeating a filthy phrase uttered by one of their students, to make sure they heard it correctly, as they have a hearing problem. They were later released due to a lack of anything to really charge them with.
I was given this year 5 classes of students which quite obviously have a much higher than normal percentage of troublemakers and dysfunctional students. When they do something which merits calling for a dean to come up, the assistant principal of security instead comes up. After hearing me tell of Roberto hitting LaKeisha, he then polls the class right in front of me, “Well, did Roberto hit LaKeisha?” The kids always side with their own, and say, “No, she’s lyin’, Roberto didn’t hit no LaKeisha.” Upon which he invariably turns to me and says, “See? It never happened!” So, the kids are learning that lying is OK and gets results. Great education. They take it further in the NYC schools, as per Bloomberg’s “50 Ways to Fire Your Teachers” handbook (it really exists). If you’re over 50, you’re too expensive and you know your rights. You’re dangerous to the Bloomberg machine, so you must go. Therefore, not only are you deliberately assigned problematic classes, the students therein are actively encouraged to write statements against you. To them, it’s great fun getting some revenge on a teacher who has the nerve to ask them to be quiet, put away their cellphone, or pay attention instead of talking. They never connect consequences, like your little game could get your teacher fired. They will actually tell you, “I’m gonna get you fired!” and then proceed to write up statements for the assistant principal of security about things that never happened or things you never said. And of course, these statements are well-coached by Mr. Security.
Meanwhile, the kids are running wild in the halls and classrooms, and teachers are afraid to say or do anything.
This is the horror which is going on now during Bloomberg’s Reign of Terror for dedicated conscientious teachers like me. You actually shake like a leaf upon entering your building in the morning, not knowing what NEW letter you will find in your mail slot alleging of some terrible thing you did which “made the student feel nervous or afraid”.
From what lawyers tell me, you were very fortunate in the case with your special needs child having done something which resulted in a judgment against her. Usually, the parents of a minor are responsible for the acts of their child.
Could you tell us how you managed to avoid the liability?
It sounds like an interesting case/legal argument.
Why should it cost $125,000 to defend yourself?
Who are the real predators here?
No. The standard response is assume the girl is telling the absolute truth, remove the teacher, based on the accusation slone,from school, sometimes in handcuffs, put the teacher on administrative leave, interview hundreds of students so the false accusations can be spread around the whole school, and, if he does not totally lose his job, put a nasty letter in his file that presents the unfounded accusation as if it were truth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.