Teacher Accused of Groping Student Confronts Teen's Mom: 'It's No Big Deal!'

my daughter was sexually abused in this school in a hallway on a camera by your teacher Jenna shaba you let this predator in our school no denying she's on video the New Jersey mom who blasted school officials makes good on her promise to sue after a teacher is accused of touching her inappropriately the lawyers for the girls family are here as we go through seven of the shocking claims that they're making thanks for joining me for Crime fix I'm anginette Levy Jenna shaba is that middle school teacher from Marlboro Memorial Middle School who's been cited for inappropriately touching a female student right now shaba faces just a citation whether she will face a more serious criminal charge remains to be seen we'll have more on that in just a moment police in Marboro Township said that the March incident was recorded by school surveillance cameras but the parents of the student in question the 14-year-old girl have filed a lawsuit against the school district the superintendent a police captain and several John Doe if you thought this allegation was disturbing it only gets stranger and worse take a look the mother of the student who railed on the school board says shaba showed up at her house the day of the incident and tried to explained how she touched her daughter by showing her and touching her chest the lawyer for the family says a neighbor snapped the photo the lawsuit says that Jenna shaba taught students who had special education needs and that she was actually familiar with the 14-year-old girl in question because she had tutored her younger siblings who also had some special education needs the family of the girl claims they have witnesses who can testify that Jenna shaba engaged in grooming Behavior for a long time the lawsuit claims Jenna shaba would routinely and openly engage in sexually explicit and flirtatious conversations with female students at the school in her classroom and in front of other teachers the suit also references minor number two another student at the school and what she claims to have seen the suit says minor two indicated that Jenna shaba would discuss other teachers and men's penis sizes in the IEP class and would openly talk about her own sex life to her 10 to 14-year-old students the suit continues minor 2 indicated that she reported Jenna shab's inappropriate conversations in class to the school guidance counselor and that the school never investigated the allegations the suit also claims that shaba talked about her own sex life to students and other teachers at the school she's also accused of grooming the student in question by talking about sexual relationships other teachers were having and by discussing the influence and power that she had at the school the suit claims Jenna shaba would commonly emphasize that she had a personal relationship with the assistant principal because she was babysitting her children it goes on to say Jenna shaba had a very close relationship with the guidance counselors and would routinely associate and travel with them the suit accuses the school of fostering this type of environment and enabling shaba by allowing her to leave classes to have lunch with guidance counselors and the school resource officer another claim in the suit Jenna shaba would discuss how she was tutoring an autistic child and would tell the victim that whenever she went into the basement to tutor the child he would have an erection Jenna shaba would then say that the boy would ask her how to get rid of the erection and she would joke about it with the victim the lawsuit claims that Jenna shaba touched the student inappropriately on March 13th in the hallway of the school outside of her classroom door Jenna shaba who then began fondling and rubbing the victim's breast with one hand that's what the lawsuit says the suit claims that shaba was quote poking touching massaging and rubbing the breast after this Jenna shaba took her hand and placed the back of her hand on the victim's forehead to imply that she was getting hot now this is all according to the lawsuit the suit claims the student blacked out and a third student is quoted as witnessing this entire thing and then running after the victim to comfort her the suit claims an assistant principal notified the student's mother later that afternoon that her daughter had been fondled and that it was recorded by school security cameras here's what the student's mother claimed another school official said in a letter to her the school failed to see the situation for my child then when the damage was done the lawyer in this District writes me a letter and I'm going to quote his line if anybody should be aware of this teacher proclivities I hope you know the definition of that it should have been Jane Doe's parents he blamed me for what happened down that hallway your teacher Jan shaba molest my daughter in school sends me a letter the lawyer is in this room he's in this room and he said it was direct your comments to the chair please I got three minutes it's right here come over S I got six go ahead good he sent me letter come on my husband has cancer he's got chemo throat I'll talk for him he sent me this letter I have a copy that it's my fault my daughter was sexually abused at school I said the quote by a teacher you failed to protect my daughter from so there is a lot more to this lawsuit that I haven't even touched on yet so I want to bring in the two lawyers representing the victim's family in this case they are Nema and Mary he filed the civil suit and Ron bar nadav is representing uh the family on the criminal aspect of this so let's start with you Nema this lawsuit um is pretty astounding the allegations are incredible that this happened in a school hallway in front of not only other students but a teacher it's captured on video and a teacher you know a school official calls the victim's mother later in the day and says hey this just happened and I have the video and this you need to know about this so uh it's pretty stunning the allegations you all are making yes you know first thank you for having us um the allegations are stunning but they're more than allegations right um a lot of these cases you see today that involve sexual assault of minors um at least how I've seen them usually are are things that have happened in the past right the legislative changes have allowed people who were previously assaulted to bring their cases now and there's not that much evidence to support their claims a lot of he said she said this is a unique case where it's caught not only on a school security camera but it's witnessed by another teacher who who saw the whole thing so the the word allegation is the appropriate nomenclature but the reality here is you know what's being said happened by the family according to them is supported by real lifetime video footage Ron right now Jenna shaba faces a citation I mean she's she's been cited for inappropriately touching this student um but do you expect more to possibly come out of this since the prosecutor's office is indeed involved in this case do you expect a criminal charge thank you for having me I expect that within the next couple of weeks we're going to have a slew of charges that will come out against the teacher it was caught on video there's actual Witnesses and there's enough evidence at least to establish not just let it happen but you know the first step is you have to get the probable cause is there probable cause that a crime was committed and they can identify the person who committed the crime and frankly there's another teacher who's a witness and it's on video the teacher touched a 13-year old's chest completely inappropriate I think something strong in the police department that they only charged it with a citation or a DP offense I don't know why that happened we will uncover the truth but it's actually a criminal event that occurred I want to take a quick break from this update on Jenna shab's case to tell you about something that can help you learn more about the people in your life it's a great website and it's called truthfinder.com truthfinder is one of the world's largest public record search Services truthfinder has just one goal and that is to help you and me learn the truth about the people we meet each day here's how it works simply log on to truthfinder.com and put in a name within minutes and in some cases maybe even seconds you will get reports that include phone numbers addresses friends family criminal records and so much more it will also show you sex offender statuses for people who might live in your neighborhood the cases that I cover each day make it clear that you have to do everything in your power to keep you and your loved ones safe so right now crime fixed viewers can get 50% off of confidential background reports just log on to truthfinder.com LC crime fix and start accessing information about almost anyone Nema in the civil lawsuit you say that Jenna shaba was texting back and forth with the mother of the victim in this case who's identified only by her initials basically was trying to explain herself and say that you know this other this school official just wants to get her in trouble and that she's conservative um you know so you have some text message evidence here um text between mom who was at the Schoolboard meeting we saw her earlier in the show and Jenna shaba so I I I'm it's confounding to me uh that this discourse is taking place when you're saying it's all on video I don't know if Jenna should be knew at the time that it was on video um but you know you are right it is astounding and what's more astounding is the fact that after you have this barrage of text messages going on throughout the course of that evening she shows up to the house she comes to the house and she's basically asking this family to um vindicate her conduct to make it acceptable to go talk with the school and make it seem like it didn't happen and in there she's that that grooming we talk about in the complaint the way we interpret what happened is her trying to make it seem like Hey listen your daughter's not in trouble she didn't do anything wrong as opposed to saying look you know maybe I did something wrong they try to make it seem like this is about her daughter and she's not in trouble and again she's gonna help get this taken care of so her daughter doesn't doesn't get in trouble for it you know it's crazy when you read this at least in my opinion that's how I inter interpret it but then she shows up she shows up at the victim's house and she goes to try to justify and rationalize her her actions by showing the mom how she touched her daughter and the neighbor was there watching and taking pictures of what was happening right you see the mom she's frush she's standing there angry mom still doesn't fully know or appreciate what's happened right she's she's trying to absorb it and Jenna puts her hands on mom's breast saying oh this is how I touch them like somehow how you touch breast on a 13 14 year old makes a difference the mere fact that you're touching the the the body part an inappropriate body part on a child speaks volumes there is no way in my opinion to rationalize it and you you see actually that that notion of rationalization even from the attorney his public statements try to justify what happened he doesn't say it doesn't happen he doesn't say this girl was never touched he just tries to saywell she was close with the family it was acceptable it was okay this this this notion of rationalization is really I think what stands out the most in this in this situation you cannot rationalize inappropriate conduct or inappropriate touching with a minor in my opinion you can't do it a minor can't give consent in any capacity minor can't sign a contract a minor can't give consent at that age for sexual intercourse or otherwise so in what world does someone think that that minor can give consent to being inappropriately touched or how can you rationalize it I think that's what's so shocking here I want to go back to uh the comments made by the attorney for Jenna shaba he has claimed that this is defamatory she did nothing wrong he'll be filing a lawsuit things of that nature I've contacted him many times he has not yet returned my many phone calls um to you know I've spoken to who I believe to be his assistant or paralal but no no comment from him to us but we've read his other comments to other news organizations um but but I mean Ron you're saying you see criminal charges coming out of this you said a slew of criminal charges so have you had Communications with the prosecutor's office about this I have had communication with the prosecutor's office they're reviewing uh uh what called a data dump on the cell phone to get all the communications and they're putting it together at the end of the day though the proof is that the teacher with both hands open hands placed her hands on a 13-year-old private parts and uh so to justify it is I'm a close friend I should be allowed to touch kids and that that just can't stand uh as far as you know the attorney's concerned I get it I'm an attorney he's an attorney uh um but I think he's also treading on thin water right he's on thin thin ice here because there are cases where people intimidate a witness and they're certainly the victim Bill of Rights and a victim has a right to express how they're feeling now if you're going to go out and try to defame a victim well there might be consequences to that so that's probably why somebody would not be answering the phone this is not the form in which that would be litigated uh certainly uh I think that if he's threatening to sue he's more than welcome to sue he knows exactly how to do it there are a lot of um stunning allegations in here I mean the touching is you know not next level that this happened out in the open and that a school official is calling and telling Mom I mean and she should hey this happened um you know so they did they did the right thing there calling and notifying mom as soon as they were made aware that day um but you know one of the allegations in here the grooming Behavior you talk about um 57 Jana shaba told the student that she was single and that she and another teacher had been flirting to the point that they cut out pictures of penises and put them into Jenna's pocketbook oh wow um you know just the fact that these conversations were taking place allegedly uh you know these are allegations at this point uh we're certainly not convicting her um wow uh I mean how many how long was this going on do you believe before the actual touching took place I mean because she's tutoring the siblings for I believe a year beforehand so that's a great question um this type of inappropriate behavior was going on well before my client um even existed in this setting if in the complaint you see that there is another minor um that's referred to as I think um CH minor 2 yeah and what's very interesting here is this minor and her family do not want to sue the school they have no interest in litigation they do not want what's the negative publicity that's happening with this person they're merely coming out to tell their truth and this this child says that there were inappropriate conversations as well to her that Jenna shika tried to get her phone number that Jenna shaba tried had these inappropriate conversations and that child went and told the guidance counselor and said hey there are inappropriate conversations happening in this school and guidance counselor did nothing so they answered your question question is we believe that this inappropriate hypersexualized environment at Marvel Memorial existed before um our client in regards to her grooming we can only we're putting it together as well right she didn't tell her parents about this stuff um Jenna shaba in The Grooming process made it clear to say don't talk to your parents about this and and tried to create this friendship friendship situation right and that's that's what grooming is so after this incident mom's been sitting down and and talking through it reading these text messages and we're discovering this on a sort of after Thea basis so it's been going on for a while I know that sounds horrible to say but we're grateful that Jenna shaba was so reckless in our opinion that she did this in public because the direction this was going could have been far worse I mean Jenna shaba according to my client was trying to have sleepovers with her and a friend oh come over bring a friend I mean so you can see in our in our allegations where this is headed and the fact that what happened is horrendous it's horrific but it could have been far far worse the victim's family is suing the school district and a police captain involved in the investigation neither the superintendent nor the police captain Steve Levy have responded to my requests for comment my my my suit against him and superintendent balone superintendent balone has other aspects of the suit but my suit against them is not that they didn't act fast enough take your time do your investigation there's no stopwatch do it right and tell the population the truth we don't think that happened if you look at the Timeline the incident occurred on March 13th my client went public on about April 15th or 16th we get an email from the investigator the following day saying oh can you send me these text messages you were talking about we're still doing our investigation I need another week or two where was this level of communication for a month right a month they had this information they're asking for evidence that either they knew existed and they didn't care to ask for earlier or they lost we send them that information and that next day that one or two week timeline is out the window they press these charges the problem here is and by we I mean the family I'm not speaking for myself what the problem here is that the the police captain Levy comes out and releases a public statement that says after a comprehensive and thorough investigation we have pressed charges those words matter because right now no one has seen the video there's two sides to this story and the the social media Facebook the maror mom's page is exploding people are bashing my client people are supporting my client people feel bad for her people are calling them gold diggers effectively that they're they're they're they're chasing l ation they're digging up their 911 history they're insinuating the husband's not dying of cancer from being a first responder they're they're tearing this family through the mud and where do they get the ammunition to do that when you have a position of authority like the superintendent or the police captain making a public statement people rely on that this goes back to the notion that they're too busy in our opinion trying to cover this up at the expense of this family we don't the suit against them is tell the truth that's it I will drop the lawsuit against the police captain tomorrow if he comes out and he puts a public statement out that says our investigation is still ongoing it wasn't thorough and comprehensive that's we don't want money from them we want the truth and again those were the attorneys for the students family Nema Amir and Ron bar nadav as I mentioned earlier Jenna shaba has denied this allegation through her attorney Mitchell anel I have contacted him several times requesting comment and he has not returned my calls he did tell the Asbury Park Press though that we are confident that when a judge hears all the facts in this case Jenna will be completely exonerated and her good name and reputation will be restored I've also reached out to the mammouth County prosecutor's office to check on the status of this investigation at the time of this recording I had not yet heard back that's it for this edition of crime fix I'm Anette Levy thanks so much for being with me I'll see you back here next time

Channel: Law&Crime Network

Views: 95,866

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network, true crime, truecrime, true crime videos, court, trials, law&crime

Id: YPecN37YOKA

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024