The mother told authorities about her suspicions because of what she says happened to her son. She did everything right. She complained to the school and she complained to police about her suspicions that her son was being inappropriately touched. And, that was three years ago. "Everybody just swept it under the rug," she told ABC7 News. She is the mother of a 14-year-old boy who is autistic and has trouble communicating. She does not want her identity disclosed or that of her son.
ABC7 News is calling her "Jane" and her son "David."
David went to Achieve Kids, a school for developmentally disabled students. He was 11-years-old in 2009 when his mother says he began behaving strangely and complaining about a teacher touching him. "He just told me that they were being mean to him and they were pushing on him and so on," she recalled. "You know, any time a staff member is putting hands on someone, I just take it to another level and try to see what's going on."
Jane says 33-year-old Waking Bailey was a teacher's aide in David's class. He's the same suspect charged with raping an 18-year-old girl with a mental capability of a 5-year-old at the same school. Bailey is now also charged with molesting two young girls at EMQ, a residential care facility in Los Gatos.
Jane says she took her concerns to the school. She says a meeting in which the director and Bailey were present, resulted in no action. "They just said that, 'Your son is making up things,' and I just did not believe it. My mother's intuition just did not believe what they were saying," she said. Jane pulled her son out of the school and filed a police report, but she says that too was fruitless. "At that time, they just told me they would check into it and that was it. There was never a follow-up."
Jane's attorney Heather Sweeney wishes authorities would have believed her story. "Our client did everything right, went to the school, went to the authorities and did everything right and yet here we are four years later, and there's three more additional victims," she said. Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Marisa McKeown says that since Bailey's arraignment, she's received many calls. "After Mr. Bailey was arraigned and in response to the media's inquiry into the case, we received many calls from members of the community. We do believe he has more victims," she said.
The school says it is cooperating with the investigation but does not know anything about any additional victims. They also said they could not comment about David's case until they checked their own reports. Police are trying to find the report David's mother filed through the case number which she submitted to ABC7 News, who in turn submitted it to police. Prosecutors say they are taking David's case very seriously.
Bailey's lawyer could not be located for comment.
