|
|
|
Former FL teacher, local grad faces allegations |
|
|
|
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
Cliff Buchan
News Editor
As high school and college student-athletes go, Joe Ferraro was a talented youth who excelled on the field and in the classroom. In the school yearbook as a senior at Forest Lake High School, he listed his top goals to “play college football” and become a “teacher and a coach.”
Ferraro achieved all of the goals in his days at Bemidji State University where he earned a teaching degree in math. He played two years of college football in a career limited by injuries, but was a bona fide star in track and field, lettering all four years and setting school records in the shot put.
He taught math and coached two sports in Forest Lake for a year before moving on to Mora where he has taught and coached the past three years.
But now Ferraro, 29, of Rush City, is facing criminal allegations in Kanabec County that he showed pornographic videos and photos to a juvenile female student at Mora High School where he taught math and coached football and track.
On Dec. 3, 2007, Ferraro was placed on paid administrative leave by the Mora School District.
Mora Superintendent Doug Conboy said on Monday the school board will meet tonight (Thursday) in closed session to determine Ferraro’s employment status with the school district.
If the school board votes to terminate Ferraro, the teacher will have 10 days to consider a public hearing in the matter or request a closed session as allowed under state law for teachers with continuing contracts, Conboy said.
On Feb. 7, Ferraro will have his first appearance in Kanabec County Court in Mora. He faces two counts in connection to the allegations of exhibiting and displaying pornographic material to a minor. He has been charged with a gross misdemeanor for obscene material, and a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
If convicted in the case, Ferraro could face a year in prison and fines.
Shocking news
For high school friends of Ferraro and a former coach here, the news came as a shock.
“It’s unbelievable,” said John Lautigar, one of his football and track coaches at Forest Lake High School. Lautigar also coached with Ferraro when he came to work here in the 2002-2003 school year.
Ferraro was hired to teach math at Century Junior High School and the high school. He coached track and football. Lautigar was also an assistant football coach in the fall of 2002.
“He (Ferraro) would work on anything you asked him to do,” Lautigar said. “I always thought he was going to do well as a coach.”
Lautigar said Ferraro was also one of the top athletes that he coached in football and track at the high school.
“He was hard-working and a good athlete,” Lautigar said. “He had awesome skills as an athlete. He was very skilled.”
Tyler Engquist quarterbacked the football team in the fall of 1996 when both were seniors. “He (Ferraro) was the focal point of our team,” Engquist said. “We ran everything through him.”
Engquist said Ferraro was a powerful and skilled running back who led the Rangers that fall. “He was probably the best athlete I played with.”
Jesse Johnson, one year ahead of Ferraro in high school, blocked for Ferraro as an offensive lineman in the fall of 1995. He remembers Ferraro as a great athlete.
Both Engquist and Johnson have had infrequent contact with Ferraro in recent years. They would see each other on occasion during their college years when Johnson was at St. Thomas and Engquist was at Southwest State in Marshall and their football teams would meet.
Both said they were shocked by the allegations.
“He was a good kid. He was a smart kid,” Engquist said.
“That’s shocking,” Johnson said when learning of the allegations. “He was a good student, a great athlete.”
For Johnson, the allegations are not in character with the Joe Ferraro that he knew. “I wouldn’t pass judgment until I heard Joe’s side of the story,” Johnson said.
In high school, Ferraro was a member of the National Honor Society. He was a Homecoming King candidate in the fall of 1996 and served as a football captain.
His classmates voted him the most athletic male among the graduating class of 1997.
The allegations
On Jan. 14, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Joseph Patrick Ferraro was charged with “exhibiting obscene material” to a juvenile female student, and disorderly conduct, after the student came forward to authorities on Nov. 30.
According to the criminal complaint, the student told investigators that Ferraro had shown her videos of naked adult females on his computer during break periods, during a time frame between mid-September to mid-November.
The videos depicted women in the act of striptease and playing naked football. There was also a video of a toddler playing with a sexual enhancement device. The juvenile student commented that Ferraro would make comments on the females during viewings, and said “he and his present girlfriend watch pornography together on a regular basis,” according to the court document.
During the same time-frame, the student alleges that Ferraro often made suggestive comments to her, like asking if she had seen a male student naked yet, asking her if she was sexually active with her boyfriend, and telling her he had posed nude during college because he was “proud of what he had.”
The victim told investigators that the conversations and videos made her “physically sick and depressed.”
A friend of the victims alleges that some comments were made in his/her presence, and subsequent interviews were consistent with the victim’s allegations. The victim’s boyfriend also corroborated her testimony, according to the complaint.
In early December, authorities spoke with Ferraro for the first time, and he denied having pornographic material on his computer.
When informed that his computer was going to be sent to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis, investigators stated that Ferraro’s demeanor visibly changed.
A search warrant for the contents of the computer by the BCA revealed “many graphic files that depicted provocatively posed, naked, or engaged in explicit sexual activity.” In addition, the files were consistent with descriptions given by the victim.
Superintendent Conboy said Ferraro was in his fourth year of teaching at the Grade 7-12 Mora High School. He coached football in the fall and track in the spring, while supervising the weight room during the winter, Conboy said.
Mora has 1865 students enrolled in grades K-12, including 885 at the high school, Conboy said.
Attempts to reach Ferraro for comment were not successful.
(Editor’s Note: Patrick Tepoorten, staff writer of the ECM Post-Review in North Branch, contributed information for this story.)
|
|
|
