Ricky Ordway, a 44-year-old Peoria elementary school teacher, is in the middle of a $25 million lawsuit filed against the school district, while he awaits trial on child molestation charges involving up to 20 students. The claim was filed in October by a lawyer who represents an alleged 11-year-old victim, who accused Ordway of both molestation and sexual assault.
The lawsuit claims the Peoria Unified School District ignored the warning signs despite the fact Ordway displayed serious and grossly inappropriate sexual predator behavior and failed to properly train its employees in reporting such conduct. School district representatives have yet to comment on the lawsuit.
In May, the computer science teacher was arrested on suspicion of inappropriately touching fifth-grade girls at Sun Valley Elementary School. He has been charged with three counts of sexual abuse, 11 counts of child molestation, and 10 counts of attempt to commit child molestation.
According to court records, the prosecution has identified 12 victims since 2010; however, most of the alleged offenses happened this past school year. Ordway is currently on paid administrative leave, which means he is still employed by the school district.
Ordway pleaded not guilty in August to the charges against him and is currently free on bail. The trial will be held on April 16, 2020.
Is Your Child the Victim of Sexual Abuse in Phoenix? Let Montoya, Lucero & Pastor, P.A. Help You Seek Justice!
When you send your child to school, you trust that the teachers, school administrators, and other employees will provide him/her with an educational environment that is safe. Unfortunately, school districts, teachers, and school administrators often fail to appreciate that to create a safe environment for children, they must be trained to identify predatory behavior. Sexual predators like this Peoria school teacher often groom children and their parents well before the sexual abuse occurs. The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART) defines grooming as a “method used by offenders that involves building trust with a child and the adults around a child in an effort to gain access to and time alone with the child. The offender may assume a caring role, befriend the child, or even exploit their position of trust and authority to groom the child and or the child’s family. Grooming behavior may include sexually explicit jokes to normalize the topic of sex; ‘accidental’ touching in the context of physical play or physical activity such as wrestling, swimming or stretching for sporting events. Grooming may also include showing special treatment to the child such as buying gifts, giving the child things the child’s parents do not allow or exposing the child to parts of the body or other sexually explicit material. When school districts fail to provide teachers and school administrators with the proper training, school districts are not creating the safe environment our children deserve.
With more than 60 years of collective experience, our legal team at Montoya, Lucero & Pastor, P.A. is committed to helping you and your family obtain the financial compensation and justice you all deserve. Not only do we want to hold the sexual predator and school district accountable for their actions, but we also want to make sure that sexual predators are identified and fired from their positions of trust before any more children are sexually abused.
If your child has been the victim of sexual abuse in Phoenix, contact us today at (602) 483-6869 and schedule a free consultation.