Jury gets case of alleged abuse of autistic kids
VISTA ---- An attorney for two young autistic children on Thursday asked a jury to award each child $1.46 million based on allegations that their Escondido school teacher repeatedly pinched, squeezed and bruised them.
Attorneys for the six defendants ---- which include teacher Shawn Priest and the Escondido Union School District ---- argue that the students were not abused and were never intentionally hurt.
After three weeks of testimony, jury deliberations in the case began late Thursday afternoon and will pick up again this morning.
The children's parents claim the two severely autistic children, neither of whom is able to speak, were physically abused from 2000 to early 2002 at the Nicolaysen Center, a preschool geared toward special education students.
The parents also claim that then-principal Jan Zelasko and the school district were alerted to the alleged mistreatment of the children but failed to do enough to prevent it.
Both children, identified in court only as Austin B. and Jessica B., were each 3 years old when they started at the school. The two children are not related.
Priest is no longer a teacher at Nicolaysen, but still works for the district.
Andrea Leavitt, the plaintiff's attorney, told the jury during her closing arguments on Thursday that Priest ---- who, at the time of the alleged abuse was still working toward his teaching credential ---- was seen squeezing and pinching the two autistic children to get compliance. The actions, she argued, left bruises.
"Sometimes there are real monsters, monsters who hurt children. They seem very nice and are nice to other adults," Leavitt said. "When no one is looking, they are not so nice."
School district attorney Jack Sleeth argued that most of the people who reported the alleged abuse misunderstood what they were seeing.
Priest, Sleeth said, was using an accepted technique for working with autistic children, a method known as "deep pressure." Priest never intended to hurt the children, Sleeth said.
The attorney also said the aide in Priest's class had testified that she never witnessed any abuse. Sleeth also noted there was no medical documentation to support claims of physical abuse.
Jurors also were shown evidence during the closings ---- letters written to school and district officials by Nicolaysen employees ---- only recently approved as OK for them to see.
One of those letters, penned nearly three months before Priest left the school, one teacher claimed Priest was "aggressive and physically abusive" with the children.
In the letter, the teacher also claimed Priest forced Austin to color, with Priest using so much pressure that Priest's knuckles turned white.
During the trial, jurors learned that principal Zelasko contacted Child Protective Services and that the agency investigated. The outcome of the CPS investigation was not given to the jury. No criminal charges have brought against Priest.
The jury is left to decide if Priest touched the children with the intent to harm them, whether the touching was reasonable and whether the kids suffered any harm.
They are also asked to decide if Priest, Zelasko, Superintendent Mike Caston, and Assistant Superintendents Bob Leon and Claudia Boyle were negligent. All five are named as defendants.
Because the two children, now 8 years old, are severely disabled, any jury award would go into a trust account for them.
Leavitt asked the jury to award the children $1.46 million each for what she said was 20 months of abuse.
During his closings, Sleeth told the jury that the two disabled kids don't know the value of money, and suggested that if the jury wanted to compensate them, they should consider giving Austin a trip or Disneyland or Jessica a chance to go horseback riding.
Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-3517 or tfiguroa@nctimes.com.