Boy alleges he was sexually assaulted by teacher

Grandparents say concerns brought to school’s attention fell on deaf ears

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | 2:10 a.m.

2008 file photo/Stephen R. Sylvanie/Special to the Sun

Garrett Junior High teacher Charles Richard "Rick" Rogers coached the BC United soccer club for 23 years. He has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, using a minor in producing pornography and sexual assault and lewdness with a minor under 14.

Rogers appears in court (April 2009)

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A woman who says her son was a victim of Charles Richard Rogers, the Boulder City teacher arrested on charges of child sexual assault and possession of child pornography, wishes she had been more suspicious when Rogers lavished attention on her son.

The boy, who is now 14, told his mother recently that he was sexually assaulted by Rogers, most recently a science teacher at Garrett Junior High School, during sleepovers at his teacher’s house starting when he was 10 years old.

The mother and her son, who now live in Indiana, are scheduled to travel to Boulder City this week for an interview with police detectives.

She already has supplied police with photos of her son but has not been told whether he appears on any of the videos police say they found in Rogers’ home. Police said they could not yet confirm whether the boy is one of the alleged victims.

“I thought like everybody else that he was just a nice guy,” said the woman, who asked that her name not be used to protect her son’s identity. “Like everybody else, I didn’t see it.”

Some of the evidence against Rogers will be presented during a preliminary hearing, which was postponed from Tuesday in Boulder City Justice Court until May. Judge Victor Miller will decide whether there is enough evidence to send the case to District Court for trial.

Rogers, 46, is being held in the Clark County Detention Center in lieu of $1.3 million bail. He is charged with two counts of sexual assault with a minor, three counts each of lewdness with a minor and use of children in pornography, and 64 counts of possession of child pornography.

The boy met Rogers when he was in his fourth-grade class at Robert Taylor Elementary School in Henderson, the woman said. She had recently been divorced, and her son became friends with Rogers’ foster child. Over the next three and a half years, she said, her son spent nights at Rogers’ house, and Rogers bought him new clothes and toys and took him on a ski trip to Utah.

When the child’s grandparents became suspicious about all of the attention, the mother asked her son about it, she said.

“I said, ‘Look me in the face and tell me nothing is going on,’” she said. “He said, ‘Nothing is going on.’ I trusted that.”

But recently, when news reports of Rogers’ arrest reached the woman in Indiana, she asked the boy again, and this time the answer was different.

“I pulled him in a room and said, ‘I just need to know. I won’t feel any different,’” she said. “It was probably one of the hardest moments I ever went through in my life.”

She said she got the day off work and she and her son went to a restaurant, where they talked about it.

“He said it started with the sleepovers,” she said. “I said, ‘Why didn’t you make up excuses not to go over there? He said it didn’t happen every time, and in the times it wasn’t happening, Mr. Rogers was doing anything to make him smile, anything to make him laugh. He needed that attention.”

The boy’s grandparents said they went to school officials and Boulder City police in fall 2005 trying to get someone to investigate their suspicions. They thought the attention Rogers was giving their grandson was inappropriate.

They said school officials dismissed their concerns and police did not take a report. Police Chief Thomas Finn, who was not with the department at the time, said he planned to investigate what happened with the grandparents’ complaint and ensure any similar complaints are properly handled in the future.

The boy at one point told his grandfather that things went on with Rogers that he was not comfortable with, but when the grandfather pressed him for more information, the boy clammed up, the grandfather said.

They took their concerns to school Principal Janet Dobry, who dismissed them, they said.

“When we complained to the principal and gave her the information, she said, ‘No, we have no concerns there,’” the grandmother said.

Dobry said the Clark County School District has instructed her not to talk about the case.

A School District spokeswoman would not answer questions but noted a policy that outlines actions to be taken in the case of a complaint about a teacher. It includes a complaint form to be filled out if the situation is not resolved informally.

The grandparents said they were only recently given a copy of that form to fill out.

“There is nothing on file. No record that I ever contacted them,” the grandmother said. “Who do you turn to? It’s really frustrating.”

Boulder City Police officials say other parents also have come to the department saying they tried to bring suspicions about Rogers’ actions to the attention of the School District without success. Police would not provide details.

The boy’s mother said she noticed changes in her son’s behavior and his grades, but assumed they were because of her divorce and struggles to support the family.

He “was a straight-A student, but then his grades all dropped. Since the sixth grade, he has had no respect for his teachers. At the time, I was blaming myself,” she said. “Now, when I look back, it was all about this time when his attitude changed.”

Now her son is getting counseling and his attitude is improving, she said.

“Since this all came out, it’s like a big burden lifted off him,” she said. “He’s talking nicer to us, not getting into as much trouble. You can tell he feels better about himself now. He’s not ashamed, not hiding this horrible secret.”

Discussion: 18 comments so far…

By gmag39

4/21/09 at 5:48 a.m.

Suggest removal

Evil has a name. Serial Rapist Rick Rogers.
Purveyer of incaculable human suffering.
Brace yourselves, Boulder Residents.
The Lawsuit Litigant Line is a Long, Long, queue.
By triumph110

4/21/09 at 6:52 a.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By Babyboomer

4/21/09 at 7:45 a.m.

Suggest removal

Parents need to be more involved.They need to be able to talk to their kids...at a young age. They need to know they can tell their parents "anything" and not be afraid to do so.This would have come out long ago...and perhaps before something happened.
By 2zero

4/21/09 at 7:53 a.m.

Suggest removal

CCSD's "Governance Policy" requires that the policy is to submit the form on the form policy to enact the response of the response policy, then and only then can the policy to investigate CCSD employees under the union contract, contract policy. These forms are available by submitting the request in writing specific to the form requested and that the individual form number information is available by calling 1-800-eat-5hit.

Terry Janison, Board Trustee and Board President; running for some "better" elected, more powerful title ASAP, will provide parents the information if you tell her..."her 5hit smells good" and she is the keeper of the big picture! Include a large donation and she will even represent the child?
By meanashell

4/21/09 at 8:35 a.m.

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Shame on the BC police. They never looked into the grandparents concerns? Maybe they felt Rodgers was one of their own? Protect your own no matter what the cost? Any other time they have 4 -5 units pulling over someone who is jay-walking! They pull you over if you make a California stop, they ticket you if you are going 2 miles over the speed limit. Check out the 7-11 they always have someone pulled over in there. They set up traps for the crosswalks - they can't investigate a possible child molester? Oh yeah, they are too busy with the important stuff! They ought to hang Rodgers (and whomever blew off the grandparents) I'm disgusted!!!!
By why

4/21/09 at 10:16 a.m.

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I am sorry but I don't care what a nice guy he might have been, why would any parent let their child spend the night at a teachers house? Doesn't that sound just weird in the first place?
By gmag39

4/21/09 at 11 a.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By Fred_Flintstone

4/21/09 at 1:40 p.m.

Suggest removal

As a state-run and evaluated system, the school and principal are motivated to dismiss such claims unless the parents are savvy enough to know enough about how to get through the red tape. But the Boulder City police???!!! That is their job! what a joke. is it any wonder Nevada is at or near the bottom in the country on just about every performance measure?
By Harley

4/21/09 at 3:37 p.m.

Suggest removal

The casual observe may get the impression that the CCSD is a criminal syndicate practicing in pedophile protection and malfeasance while masquerading as a public service provider.

A through independent investigation of the CCSD's policies, procedures, teaching methods, and spending practices seems prudent.
By lvmachead

4/21/09 at 3:44 p.m.

Suggest removal

What does this have to do with CCSD's teaching methods or spending practices? Nothing. As usual the aberration get the headlines while the hard working teachers get ignored.
By starrynite7

4/21/09 at 4:09 p.m.

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I totally agree with Babyboomer, the parents are also to blame in this situation. You should not let your children stay over at someone's house that you do not know very well. I would never let my son stay at a teacher's house, that would be weird! Parents are too trusting with people when it comes to their kids. You can not blame teacher's procedures, teaching methods etc.. that is the most idiotic thing I have ever read. It was ONE teacher, not all the teachers..geez. Parents need to be held accountable for what happens to their children. I am so tired of hearing about children being molested and no one ever thinks about the parents lack of involvement in their lives.

Parents know when their children have been molested because the children change, they become depressed, they wet the bed, they cry at night, some have night terrors, some don't want to shower or bath.

Parents turn a blind eye to child molestation because they might lose out on something they are getting from the molester. For example, if they feel their children need a male role model in their lives, they will over look 'red flags' that would usually serve as a warning that they person they are trusting is very dangerous.

We all have intuition and our intuition tells us when a person is a sexual predator. Some people just don't think they should speak up for the rights of their children. If someone seems to good to be true..chances are...they are too something..and it isn't a good thing.

Look at how many sick parents let their children stay at Micheal Jackson's freak ranch, I am sure they heard all about the night's sick, twisted events the next day. Many parents felt they had found someone so great to be with their kids, and yet Micheal Jackson is the biggest pervert in the world!

Instead of investigating CCSD we should be investigating parents and see why they don't keep their kids safe from sexual predators and kiddie porn freaks!
By 2zero

4/21/09 at 5:08 p.m.

Suggest removal

"I would never let my child stay with a teacher"...please, you let your kids spend all day with them!

Read the article; this "teacher" had a foster child and this poor kid was friends with the "teachers" foster child. Let's see; the man is a trusted teacher and coach and has been checked out by the CCSD. The man is a foster parent and has been vetted by that agency, and your child makes friends with his foster kid. So why not let your kid spend the night?

I am sorry for all the children hurt by this pos. In the end it is the professionals; CCSD (Principle on up to Scowl), the BC (mormon) police department department, whatever agency let him take in foster children...our "policy systems" just did not do their jobs!!!!!!!
By starrynite7

4/21/09 at 6:57 p.m.

Suggest removal

The truth is that everyone involved with this man is to blame, and yet no one is really to blame. Yes, we do have our intuition, but the reality is that no one has a sign on their face saying, "I like kiddie porn" or "Child Molester"
CCSD runs a background check on teachers, this man did not have a record of being a sexual predator on file.
The foster care agency comes out and does a home check to see if the home is clean and up to standards for keeping a child. They also run background checks. How are they suppose to know if this man is a sexual predator anymore than his friends, neighbors and other teachers knew he was a predator?

There is no magic test that CCSD can use to weed out the few bad teachers, just like there is no test to weed out bad doctors, lawyers etc..

Somehow we all let these children down and there is no way we can change the situation. We can however, start taking a closer look at the people we let our children spend time with each day. When I said that "I would never let my child stay with a teacher" I meant a teacher without a child in the house.

If we all start questioning and talking to our children more than we can let them know that we are safe to confide in and that we will believe them when they tell us things we may not want to hear.

We are all upset by this tragedy and pointing fingers is not going to help the situation.
By Lenny_V

4/21/09 at 9:55 p.m.

Suggest removal

Death Penalty should be an option in child molesting cases.
By gmag39

4/22/09 at 5:27 a.m.

Suggest removal

Ol' Harley; ignorant as ever.
What would you have CCSD do? Prospective hires are fingerprinted and have federal criminal background checks run on them. Absent a prior history in such matters, CCSD is certainly not culpable for hiring someone with the proclivity to offend, sexually or otherwise.
HOWEVER, it is painfully obvious IN THIS CASE that there were enough warning signs going on here to warrant SOMEONE looking at this guy and saying, "hey, maybe there IS something unusual going on here." Too much "alone time" with young boys. Remember this: He fooled A whole lot of people for a very long time. Parents, police, and the school district. He was TRUSTED, INSIDIOUS, & PATHOLIGICAL,
Like most of these creeps.
Hindsight is always 20-20.
By Harley

4/22/09 at 8:30 a.m.

Suggest removal

gmag39 wrote:
"What would you have CCSD do?"

Like all criminal enterprises masquerading as legitimate public servants, I'd shut them down, removing society's children from the hazards and harms i.e. communicable illnesses, pedophiles, shootings, etc. found within the classroom environment. Public educational services would only be offered in a cost effective manner through "virtual academies" such as the one provided below.

http://www.k12.com/nvva/

"We cannot solve today's problems with the same level of thinking that created them." --A. Einstein
By lngtimelv

4/22/09 at 5:41 p.m.

Suggest removal

This unfortunately rings all to familiar. When I had a child in Clark County Schools who was being sexually abused and I went to the principal for help I had the tables turned on me. How dare I even suggest such a thing! How could I even go there with such thoughts? Until the principal was fired and the police showed up at my door a couple of years later. And by that time all the folks who knew involved parties were covering there booties. And what about the child victims? Just an after thought, in the court papers.