Friday, November 20, 2009 East Central Illinois

Parents say they complained about White weeks before arrest

By: Mary Schenk

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Friday, October 26, 2007 08:51:46 AM CDT

URBANA – The parents of two children concerned about a game that teacher Jon White was playing with their children had told Urbana school district officials their concerns several weeks before a criminal investigation into his conduct began.

Those parents testified Thursday in pretrial motions in the case against White, 26, accused of sexually molesting their daughters and seven others at Thomas Paine Elementary School during the 2005-06 school year. They testified that district officials assured them they would investigate.

The parents said that although Thomas Paine Principal Janice Bradley, District 116 Superintendent Gene Amberg and District 116 Human Resources director Carmelita Thomas – who have all retired since the case came to light – were all apprised of White's "tasting game," the second-grade teacher remained in his classroom until Jan. 31, when he was arrested by Urbana police as he arrived for work at 8 a.m.

It was 48 hours earlier that Urbana police investigator Duane Maxey got a tip about White from a University of Illinois police officer. The officer's wife had been told about the tasting game at a party by the mother who had complained to school officials in early November.

That mother was the first of four parents who testified Thursday in support of a motion to establish the reliability of their children's statements to police and officials from the Department of Children and Family Services. Judge Harry Clem will continue to hear evidence Tuesday. His ruling will determine if a jury will hear the recorded interviews.

The mother said she picked up her 7-year-old daughter from aftercare at the school on Nov. 2, 2006, and immediately noticed that her child was wearing red rubber fingernails.

"She said, 'We got to play the taste-testing game today, and I won a prize,'" the mother recounted of the conversation she had with her daughter as they drove home.

The mother said she had heard her daughter mention the tasting game about three to six times before that day but hadn't talked with her about it. As a former teacher herself, her thought was: "That's a long time if we're talking about a classroom activity."

What she learned from her daughter is that the game took place in White's classroom after school, sometimes with her alone and sometimes with other girls present. It involved White putting toppings on a banana and having the girls taste the banana to identify the toppings.

When she asked her daughter if she ever saw the banana, her daughter replied: "No, silly, we always have blindfolds on."

The woman said after her daughter described a second game White played with the girls and demonstrated how he put his hand on the back of the girls' heads while they bobbed their heads, she became alarmed.

"I tried to keep the conversation as casual as possible so she wouldn't see or hear the panic going through me," she said.

She and her husband also testified that they haven't spoken with their daughter about the incidents since Jan. 29, the day she was interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center in Urbana.

The mother testified that she and her daughter met with Thomas on Nov. 6 or 7 and that after Thomas interviewed the girl, she assured the mother she would investigate.

Another mother testified that she learned of her daughter's participation in the "tasting game" as the two of them ate dinner at a fast-food restaurant over the school break in December. After hearing many of the same details described by the other woman and seeing her daughter demonstrate how White held the banana and put a hand on the girls' heads, she told her daughter it wasn't appropriate and not to do it again.

Her daughter was in another second-grade section but would go to White's classroom at recess using passes he had filled out for her, she said.

"She got candy for doing the test," the mother said, adding that White also had her daughter go to his room to clean.

She said in early January, she and her husband met with Bradley, the principal, to express their concerns.

"She said it had been investigated by higher-ups than her and it would be revisited," the mother testified.

A third mother testified that she talked to her daughter about White on Feb. 1 after seeing the first story about White's arrest in The News-Gazette. Her daughter had been in White's classroom the year before and also described the tasting game as the other girls did.

That mother said she, too, tried not to react one way or the other to anything her daughter was saying. She closed the door to her bedroom and phoned the parent of another child who said her daughter had played the game and while they spoke, her daughter slipped a note under the door saying she thought she knew why Mr. White had been arrested.

When the mother questioned her as to what she thought, she told her it was because he had touched her private area while they watched a movie in the darkened classroom.

At that point, she said her daughter put her head down and cried. When she assured her that as her mother, she could tell her anything, the girl replied that she was afraid.

"I gave her a hug, told her everything was going to be OK, then I went and called the police," the woman testified.

Three of the 16 criminal counts against White are predatory criminal sexual assault, which allege actual contact between his sex organ and the girls. The other 13 counts are aggravated criminal abuse, alleging he committed acts with the girls for his own sexual arousal.

If convicted of two of the more serious predatory criminal sexual assault counts, White faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He has been free on bond since June and faces similar charges in McLean County.

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