A total of 10 employees of the St. Helens School District have now been placed on paid administrative leave stemming from a teacher sex abuse scandal that began with the arrest of two teachers a month ago. More cases have come to light since then, but it appears that at least four of the 10 cases were not previously known.
Each case is either "in connection with ongoing investigations related to allegations of sexual misconduct or for failing to report sexual misconduct," according to a Friday news release from the district. The news release did not identify any of the 10 staff on leave, and the district declined to name any of them when asked.
"We're going to need to affirm what information is legally releasable and we will do that and get back to you with that information," said J. Marie, a newly hired crisis communications expert.
During a Friday media briefing, the district introduced Marie, with J. Marie and Associates, and said she will help guide the district's public response following the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the small Oregon town. Marie said her contract is open-ended with a rate of $180 an hour and said, "I work as efficiently as I possibly can."
"For the last 20 or so years, I have had a small business supporting school districts in crisis communications and have worked closely with the Washington Association of School Administrators to support districts in a variety of critical issues," Marie said.
Current St. Helens High School teacher Eric Stearns and retired teacher Mark Collins were both arrested on Nov. 12 after a two-month investigation into what police described as allegations of "historic sexual abuse" at the school. The arrests triggered a wave of outrage from students and parents, many of whom accused district officials of covering up the allegations.
St. Helens High School Principal Katy Wagner and district Superintendent Scot Stockwell were both placed on leave a few days after the arrests, and Wagner was indicted on Nov. 26 on criminal charges of mistreatment and official misconduct for allegedly withholding care from students and failing to comply with mandatory child abuse reporting requirements.
Days before Wagner's indictment, the Oregon Department of Human Services confirmed that it had opened investigations into six staff members at St. Helens High School: Stearns, Collins, Stockwell, Wagner and two others whom KGW has not named because to date they have not been charged with crimes (Stockwell has not been charged either, but was publicly identified by the district when he was placed on leave).
Around the same time, St. Helens police announced an investigation into a St. Helens Middle School teacher for alleged criminal conduct "involving a student," and that unnamed teacher was also placed on leave.
"It's critical, ultimately, for the community to have confidence in what is learned. the investigations need to be impartial. they need to be thorough, and they need to be allowed to run their course without interference or undue speculation." Marie said.
At least some of those seven previously reported cases appear to be among the 10 paid leave cases confirmed by the district Friday, although it's unclear if they all are, especially since Collins is retired.
The district news release states that two of the staff members were placed on leave at some point before Nov. 13, three were placed on leave on Nov. 13 due to arrests, two were placed on leave at some point after Nov. 13 due to DHS reports or tip line reports, and three were placed on leave at some point after Nov. 13 due to an internal report.
The district announced last week that it was launching an internal investigation into the sex abuse scandal, but it's unclear if the "internal report" referenced in Friday's news release is connected to that investigation, which was expected to take 45 to 60 days to produce a final report.
In the past few weeks, the district has appointed an interim principal to step in for Wagner and an interim superintendent to step in for Stockwell. The district school board director also resigned after the scandal broke, and the district said Friday that has posted an application for the position, with an appointee to be named Jan. 8.
The St. Helens School District and Northwest Regional Education Service District have also engaged multiple crisis communications consultants — although one of them, Tom DeLapp, stepped down earlier this week after it came to light that he had recently been convicted of embezzlement in California.
[Breitbart] A high school dean in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is accused of running a drug trafficking organization, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced.
Lavante Wiggins, 30, who is the dean of students at Pittsfield High School, was arrested on Wednesday along with 42-year-old Theodore Warren. The pair are accused of allegedly “conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts,” according to the FBI.
Wiggins is accused of operating a drug trafficking organization that distributed large amounts of cocaine in and around the Pittsfield area, charging documents allege. Officials said Warren is allegedly a “trusted member” of that organization and serves as a runner for Wiggins.
In August 2024, Wiggins allegedly sensed he was under investigation and sent Warren to complete drug sales and deliver cocaine, the charging documents state.
During the investigation, it was found that one of Wiggins’ customers amassed more than $34,000 in debt for cocaine that Wiggins had allegedly provided on credit.
“It is further alleged that Wiggins and Warren then went about collecting on that debt while continuing to supply large amounts of cocaine to that customer,” according to the FBI.
Specifically, Wigging allegedly told Warren to give cocaine to that specific customer on four separate occasions between September and December of this year:
91 grams of cocaine on Sept. 10, 2024
approximately 100 grams of cocaine on Oct. 14, 2024
25 grams of cocaine on Oct. 31, 2024
150 grams of cocaine on Dec. 10, 2024
The men are facing charges for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. They were released soon after their arrest on conditions following an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon, according to the agency.
The charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and up to a lifetime of supervised release, as well as a fine of up to $1 million.
Superintendent Joseph Curtis released a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying Wiggins was “immediately” placed on administrative leave” after the district found out about his arrest, The Berkshire Eagle reported.
“Please know that we remain committed to maintaining a safe and supportive environment for our students and staff,” he said.
Wiggins had reportedly served as the dean of students at Pittsfield high school since 2021, according to the report.
If convicted, Wiggins and Warren face up to 20 years in prison, up to a lifetime of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1 million.
Wiggins, 30, is a graduate of Pittsfield’s now defunct private catholic school St. Joseph Central High School. While at the school, he was a captain of the Crusaders football team. In a student profile published by iBerkshires.com, Wiggins said his favorite movie was “Friday Night Lights,” his favorite NFL player Peyton Manning, and that his dream job was to be a model. After studying Sport Science at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, Wiggins was hired as Dean of Students at Pittsfield High in 2021.
According to state data, PHS has a student enrollment of 724. Over 65% of the student body is designated as high need, and almost 59% as low-income. According to 2024 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test results, the school lags behind state averages for mathematics and science.
Mr. Wiggins & Friend could have been engaged in an unusual fundraiser for a school where the need was so great…
#2
I would think that their plan would have had to be to ship it into Boston. Pittsfield is a small town. The Rangers used to have a single A baseball team there.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 11:15 Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelTimes] US President-elect Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... ’s pick for Middle East adviser Massad Boulos is not the billionaire business mogul that many believed him to be, and is in fact the CEO of a small company that sells trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria, the New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reports.
Boulos, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, campaigned on behalf of Trump in the run-up to the elections, helping him drum up Arab American support amid the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... and Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... He has powerful roots in Lebanese politics, and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... , a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.
He has also previously been described as a billionaire with extensive business ties in Nigeria, and was praised by Trump for being "an accomplished lawyer and highly respected leader in the business world."
However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... the Times reported, his Nigerian truck business is valued at just $865,000 at its current share price, and Boulos’s stake is worth less than $2.
The report suggests that the confusion surrounding Boulos’s business ventures stems from his failure to clarify that he has no connection to Boulos Enterprises, which the Financial Times previously said was his "namesake company."
Asked by the Times why he never corrected the record when his company was described as "multibillion-dollar," Boulos says that he was referring to his father-in-law’s companies as a whole, and Scoa Motors Nigeria — which he runs — is a subsidiary.
"I’ve never really gone into any details like that about the value," he says of the heavy machinery company. As to why he never clarified that he has no connection to Boulos Enterprises, he tells the Times that he doesn’t like to comment on his business.
CNN just lost in the ratings to…Food Network!! The news outlet finished in 17th place among all cable stations last week in primetime.
It wasn’t like it was a slow news cycle either. There was the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the manhunt for the killer, the… pic.twitter.com/pPXiU2Xi7I
A defiant #SouthKorean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a second #impeachment vote over his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, a move that has shocked the country, split his party and imperiled his presidency halfway through his term.https://t.co/WsTYnZtqBa
[FoxNews] A former OpenAI employee and whistleblower, Suchir Balaji, was recently found dead in his apartment in San Francisco, California.
The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has identified Balaji, 26, as the deceased person, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The manner of death has been ruled suicide.
The medical examiner said it had notified Balaji's family.
Balaji was found dead in his Buchanan Street apartment on November 26, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department told the outlet. First responders were called to his home to perform a wellness check, and no evidence of foul play was found during the initial probe.
"We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time," a spokesperson for OpenAI told Fox News Digital.
This comes after Balaji, an AI researcher, raised concerns about OpenAI breaking copyright law in an interview with The New York Times in October.
[BBC] A federal court in St Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funneling money to Pyongyang's weapons programmes.
The wider scheme allegedly involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use false, stolen, and borrowed identities from people in the US and other countries to get hired and work remotely for US firms.
The indictement says the defendants and others working with them generated at least $88m (£51.5m) for the North Korean regime over a six-year period.
North Korea's mission to the UN did not immediately reply to a request for comment from BBC News.
The prosecutors say the suspects worked for two North Korean-controlled companies - China-based Yanbian Silverstar and Russia-based Volasys Silverstar.
They were among a group of 130 North Korean IT workers employed by the two firms where they were internally referred to as "IT Warriors", according to the US Department of Justice.
The suspects were allegedly ordered to seek salaries of $10,000 a month from their US employers.
On top of the monthly wage, they would also raise funds for the North Korean regime by stealing valuable company information and threatening to leak it unless the employer made an extortion payment.
The group is now facing wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other charges.
Aside from using stolen identities to avoid detection, prosecutors said they paid people residing in the US to receive, set up, and host laptops provided by the US employers.
They would then instruct those US residents to install remote access software allowing them to appear to be working from the US when they were actually overseas.
Investigators believe the suspects are in North Korea making it unlikely that they will ever face justice.
Still, the US State Department has announced that it will offer a reward of up to $5m for anyone who can provide more information on the suspects as well as Yanbian and Volasys.
US officials have not named the American companies targeted in the scheme.
"While we have disrupted this group and identified its leadership, this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Ashley T. Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in St Louis.
"The government of North Korea has trained and deployed thousands of IT workers to perpetrate this same scheme against US companies every day."
Note that anon1 (hi, anon1!) helpfully snipped all the extraneous bits from this article, leaving us the streamlined, essential facts.
[LettersFromAustralia] Friday marked the biggest victory yet for Australian doctors against political persecution after the Queensland Supreme Court issued a scorching judgement against Australia's medical regulators on Friday. YES - Australian doctors were NOT ALLOWED to criticise the covid gene-vaccines or face regulatory action. And the Medical Board stripped this good doctor's license so he had to drive Uber Eats deliveries.
Queensland GP William Anicha Bay celebrated outside court after successfully overturning a politically motivated medical ban put on him for protesting against the covid gene-vaccines on safety grounds.
The Medical Board of Australia suspended Dr Bay’s registration on August 17, 2022, less than three weeks after he accosted the Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Conference and asked the delegates to stop forcing the jabs on people in response to an infection where "there is only a 0.27 percent fatality rate".
Dr Bay apologised for interrupting proceedings before saying the covid "vaccines" were killing people.
There have been 1000 reports of death to the Database of Adverse Event Notifications along with more than 100,000 reports of injuries from the products to Australia’s Database of Adverse Events Notifications, more than all ordinary vaccines in history combined.
The median infection fatality rate of covid was only 0.07 percent for under-70s, unvaccinated.
Despite being correct, Dr Bay was kicked out of the AMA conference by security - but not before he got his message across to everyone in the room, which he livestreamed.
In the Supreme Court judgement handed down on Friday, Justice Thomas Bradley said the extraordinary measures implemented by the parliaments and executive government during the covid panic had not given the regulators the right to deny Dr Bay procedural fairness, a hearing before an unbiased tribunal or to protect government and regulatory agencies from political criticism.
This decision is momentous because it was the Medical Boards and AHPRA's censoring of doctors that did the most damage to Australia's health system.
In March 2021, AHPRA and the Medical Boards threatened the licenses of any health practitioner if they criticised the covid products on social media.
This censorship made doctors reluctant to recognise even the possibility of vaccine injuries, as Dr Kerryn Phelps has said.
Despite years of medical training, Dr Bay was forced to deliver Uber Eats after he was suspended due to political persecution.
In his victory speech outside court, posted to X, he thanked God he was no longer suspended.
"I have my registration back again. I can prescribe Ivermectin, and most importantly - and this is what AHPRA is most afraid of - I can criticise the vaccines freely and as a registered medical practitioner of this country."
"Let me be very clear now, the vaccines are bad. The vaccines are no good and people should be afforded the right to informed consent, to choose these so-called vaccines — and if you don’t like it, too bad. Because doctors like me are going to be speaking out from now on because we have nothing to fear."
This case sets a precedent to allow doctors the freedom to speak their mind free from political persecution by regulatory agencies.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
[LettersFromAustralia] Friday marked the biggest victory yet for
This case sets a precedent to allow doctors the freedom to speak their mind free from political persecution by regulatory agencies.
