Friday, March 12, 1999
CPS hired teacher unaware of sex-abuse charges
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Cincinnati Public Schools teacher who was fired last month after allegations he improperly touched several students resigned from Covington Independent Schools in 1987 after similar accusations surfaced there.
William J. Gray, who taught at John G. Carlisle School in Covington in the 1980s, faced felony sex-abuse charges in Kenton Circuit Court in 1987 after four of his third-grade students said he fondled them. One trial ended in a hung jury in August 1987. He was acquitted in a second trial.
But because the court later granted his request for an expungement, Cincinnati Public Schools officials say, they never learned about the Covington case when they did his pre-employment criminal background check.
Cincinnati school board members fired Mr. Gray, 48, after police charged him with three misdemeanor counts of sexual imposition. Three teen boys who were his sixth-grade students at Heberle School in the West End told police he grabbed their buttocks, touched one boy's genitals and looked at a boy standing next to him at a urinal at school.
“Sounds to me like this is a case that would call for a rewriting of the law that would make it more difficult for the record to be expunged,” said Cincinnati school board member Harriet Russell.
School board members also may need to explore adding background checks such as investigating the content of applicants' personnel files from previous jobs, Ms. Russell said.
Board President Lynwood Battle stressed that the district can't trample people's privacy rights in efforts to ensure a clean record.
“There are a lot of people out there with various things on their (criminal) record but no convictions. We cannot consider anything that is not a
conviction. It's an issue of fairness,” Mr. Battle said.
“Our policy is sound. When issues like this one are brought to our attention, we will act swiftly and fairly with the interest of children on the top of our minds.”
During Mr. Gray's trials in Covington, the boys testified that he touched their buttocks and genitals in class on several occasions between September 1986 and April 1987.
Mr. Gray testified that he frequently hugged his students, and said his actions may have been misconstrued. His attorney argued that his accusers were from poor families and hungry for attention.
“I don't have any interest in children whatsoever but to teach them,” Mr. Gray testified.
Mr. Gray couldn't be reached Thursday.
He had taught in Cincinnati Public Schools since 1994. He taught in Covington schools for nine years and Campbell County schools for four years.
He resigned his Covington job in May 1987. Within days, he tried to get it back and eventually sued the Covington Board of Education in Kenton Circuit Court. He lost.
Any applicant seeking to teach in Cincinnati Public Schools must supply a police records check from his or her home county, said Carol Landwehr, the schools' manager of employment and recruitment.
If the applicant is hired, he or she must submit fingerprints for checks with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, which would uncover any offenses committed in the state.
The fingerprints of new employees who have lived in Ohio less than five years also are sent to the FBI to detect crimes committed in other states.
Mr. Gray 48, surrendered to Cincinnati police last month on three misdemeanor counts of sexual imposition.
He was released from the Hamilton County Justice Center on condition that he return to court.
Police identified his address as the Drop-Inn Center Shelter House in Over-the-Rhine, but district personnel records listed his address in Alexandria.
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