Alleged Victims Recall Culture of Sitting on Teacher's Lap

Ed. Note: On October 23, 2015, prosecutors dropped charges against Robert Noel Anderson and the case was dismissed.

Three more women have come forward saying they were molested by a former East County elementary school teacher, bringing the total number to eight.

On Tuesday, seven of the eight alleged victims started testifying in a preliminary hearing against Robert Anderson, 59.

The alleged incidents took place between 2003 and 2013, when Anderson was teaching fifth and sixth grades at Dehesa Elementary School in El Cajon, California.

One by one, the former students – now in their 20s – took the stand in Judge Kirvin’s courtroom. They said students would sit on Mr. Anderson’s lap and that sitting on the teacher’s lap was kind of a status symbol.

"He would choose someone in the classroom to sit on his lap. It was a stature thing, where girls wanted to sit on his lap. It made us feel special at the time,” one woman testified.

But that alleged victim says things changed.

"I was sitting in his lap, and he reached into my underpants and touched me inappropriately,” she said.

Some of the women came forward years ago, and Anderson’s defense attorney Kerry Armstrong says their stories have changed since then.

“The core of the stories don’t deviate, but the details, there are a lot of deviation in that. That’s why I keep walking up there with prior transcripts with what they said before. Maybe they said the left thigh before versus the right thigh now. To me, that’s big,” Armstrong said.

“This is 10, 11 years ago. Which student was standing at the desk or how many kids were standing in the classroom or in the classroom at the same time? It’s natural for them not to recall those types of details, but they never wavered on what they actually did to him,” said prosecutor Chantal De Mauregne.

The defense plans to call an investigator who had the case years ago when no charges were filed.

Because of the sensitive nature of the testimony, cameras were not allowed in the courtroom Tuesday. Anderson appeared much thinner than in the past.

The judge is expected to decide Wednesday whether or not he will stand trial.

Anderson was arrested in September and has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of committing a lewd act on a child. If convicted, he faces 22 years in prison.
 

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