CHELSEA — An employee of the Agency of Education sexually molested a teenage boy for three years, prosecutors say.
Perry Thompson, 42 of Barre, pleaded not guilty to a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child in criminal court in Orange County on Monday.
Court papers detail that a teenager, now 16, came forward with the allegations to investigators with the Department for Children and Families last week.
According to the victim, he first had sexual contact with Thompson when he was 13 years old.
In an interview with DCF workers last week, the minor said that he first met Thompson through his older brother at his grandparents’ home in Orange County.
The alleged victim said that over the course of several years he had oral sex with Thompson “probably 100 times, maybe more.” He also detailed one instance of anal penetration.
The minor also alleged that Thompson took photographs of him on his cellphone and iPad.
Thompson was arrested Friday at the AOE central offices in Barre, where he worked as an administrative assistant for Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe. Thompson is now on administrative leave.
During an interview at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on Friday, Thompson denied that he had any sexual contact with the alleged victim. He characterized his relationship to the teenager as being a big brother or father figure.
Affidavits from interviews with Thompson and the teenager reference a time in 2013 when Thompson brought the minor along on an overnight work-related trip to Stowe.
Then an employee of the Vermont State Employees Credit Union, Thompson brought the teenager to stay with him at the Stowe Mountain Lodge, where Thompson was going to be for a work-related event, according to the affidavit.
Thompson told investigators that he was later fired because his boss was angry that he had brought someone who was not a relative to the event without getting permission.
In his interview with DCF, the alleged victim said that the last time he had contact with Thompson was eight months ago, when he began dating his current girlfriend.
According to court papers, the Orange County Special Investigations Unit previously interviewed the minor in 2013, when law enforcement and DCF launched an investigation into Facebook messages between Thompson and the teenager.
The Facebook messages included sexualized jokes, references to smoking pot and instructions to Thompson to bring pills and marijuana, court papers say. At the time, the teenager told investigators that there was no sexual relationship between himself and Thompson.
However, the alleged victim told investigators last week that he had denied sexual contact with Thompson previously because Thompson gave him marijuana and cigarettes, and took him on trips to the mall.
Thompson was released on conditions after posting $10,000 bail. He began working for the AOE in 2013.
In a statement Monday, Jill Remick, director of communications and legislative affairs at AOE, said the department is “shocked and disturbed by the allegations.
AOE and the State Board of Education are cooperating fully with law enforcement’s investigation into the alleged abuse, officials said.
Stephan Morse, chair of the State Board of Education, said, “The board is both shocked and concerned on this matter.”
Last year, 365 Vermont children were victims of sexual abuse and 82 percent of the victims knew their abuser, according to DCF’s 2014 Report on Child Protection in Vermont.
Most cases of sexual abuse occurred when the abuser was a “neighbor or friend,” according to their report. In 2014, there were 31 cases where the parents committed the abuse, and 130 cases when it was an adult the child knew.
Over the past 20 years, Vermont has seen a decrease in the number of substantiated sexual abuse cases due to prevention efforts and education, according to Linda Johnson, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse an advocacy organization in Montpelier. “That is not to say it doesn’t happen, it happens all too often and it is devastating. The most important thing, when sexual abuse happens is for the community to surround the child with support and let the child know they did nothing wrong.”
This is why prevention is important, said Johnson. Investing in prevention and education for parents, teachers, administrators and adults in general to recognize the signs of grooming – when an adult begins to show inappropriate attention on a child or teen – and intervene.
“We have an abundance of laws but this isn’t a problem easily solved through laws,” Johnson said. “Prevention solves this problem as well as intervention,” she added.
“The protection of children is not up to children, it is an adult responsibility,” Johnson said.
“We have to stand up for children because they can’t stand up for themselves,” according to Johnson.
“If you see something, say something – it will make a huge difference,” she said recalling the antiterrorism airport slogan.
