LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County circuit judge on Friday agreed to allow prosecutors to use evidence that a fired private-school administrator, accused of failing to disclose a teacher’s sexual abuse of a student, had undergone specialized training on how to report child-abuse suspicions and that she had also taught other educators about their reporting obligations.
Judge Barry Sims ruled that prosecutors could show jurors evidence that Kathy Gene Griffin, 55, had completed the Virtus program and was also a certified instructor in the program.
Virtus, named for the Latin word for virtue, is a Catholic based sexual-abuse prevention curriculum used at the church’s schools nationwide, including Little Rock’s Mount St. Mary Academy. The program includes instructions about who is required to report suspicions of child sexual abuse, senior deputy prosecutor Terry Ball said.
One of the teachers whom prosecutors say was instructed in Virtus protocols by Griffin was 41-year-old Kelly Ann O’Rourke, the Mount St. Mary teacher and coach accused of having sex with a student over a period of about 17 months. O’Rourke is charged with first-degree sexual assault, a Class A felony that carries up to 30 years in prison.
Griffin was Mount St. Mary’s athletic director - one of a series of positions she held during her 26-year career at the private school - until she and O’Rourke were fired in March when the allegations about O’Rourke came to light, along with accusations that Griffin had known what was going on but didn’t report it promptly.
Griffin is charged with misdemeanor failure by a mandated reporter to notify authorities. The charge carries a maximum of one year in jail. Her trial is scheduled for the end of this month.
Prosecutors said O’Rourke abused the girl from January 2010, when she was 16, until she graduated in 2011. The accuser was 18 in February 2012 when she told her parents about O’Rourke, prosecutors said, and the parents subsequently recorded a conversation with O’Rourke in which she admitted to having sex with her, court files show.
“Acting upon O’Rourke’s repeated requests for a meeting with [the accuser’s] parents to apologize for her actions, [accuser’s] father recorded that confession and apology,” according to the court file.
The same day she told her parents, the accuser told O’Rourke that she had informed her parents, according to prosecutors. O’Rourke and Griffin were roommates, prosecutors said, and O’Rourke told Griffin that day about what she had been doing to the girl, prosecutors claim in court filings.
But Griffin did not report it to authorities, through the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline, for 16 days. Prosecutors say the “mandated reporter” law, Arkansas Code Annotated 12-18-201, requires school officials like Griffin to immediately report child-abuse suspicions through the hot line. Griffin, represented by attorney Jeff Rosenzweig, is challenging that interpretation of the law because of the accuser’s age,he told the judge.
“Our defense is ... there’s no obligation to report because [the accuser] was an adult,” he said. “The statute itself does not have a temporal requirement. It just says you have to report.”
The laws governing hotline reporting and operation are “confusing and vague,” making them unconstitutional, he told the judge. Prosecutors said the law requires reporters to notify authorities if they have “reasonable cause” to suspect abuse.
There’s no dispute that Griffin did call the hot line, but the prosecutor said Griffin did not disclose her identity, gave vague details and only reported an “inappropriate relationship” with a student. Ball, the prosecutor, also said authorities believe Griffin knew what was going on between teacher and student for more than the 16 days Griffin has acknowledged.
Ball said Griffin had been trying to cover up the abuse to protect O’Rourke, a 1989 Mount St. Mary graduate. Ball also said Griffin had tried to talk the parents out of reporting the abuse because of Griffin’s long and close relationship with O’Rourke, which goes back to 1999. Prosecutors said she talked the accuser’s parents into delaying their report of the allegations to authorities for two weeks.
The accusations became public when the school principal called police after Griffin told her about O’Rourke.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/21/2013