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Guilty
By Greg L | 16 October 2008 | Crime, Manassas City | 16 Comments
Former Manassas City teacher and Osbourn band director Ted Johnson plead guilty yesterday to molesting three underage girls in his home.
A popular Manassas teacher admitted yesterday that he molested three young girls at his Stafford County home.
Ted Thomas Johnson, 48, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery and two counts of attempted custodial indecent liberties with a child. Three other charges were dropped.
Johnson, a longtime band director at Osbourn High School and a teacher at a middle school, will be sentenced in Stafford Circuit Court on Dec. 15.
All three girls were either 12 or 13. None were students of his.
Let this serve as a lesson to anyone who might possibly be tempted to take such liberties with children. There is no tolerance for such depravity.
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16 Comments
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Very disturbing. I was so hoping that it wasn’t true!
So many lives hurt–I don’t shed any tears for him, but I do feel very sorry for his wife and kids. His parents used to attend some of the band concerts when my kids were in band. I can’t imagine how they are feeling now. The possiblity of prison (and how he’ll be treated by his fellow prisoners) and then a lifetime as a registered sex offender–I guess he thought it was worth the risk.
The most important part of this article is………
“Hardiman said Johnson had a misdemeanor sexual assault conviction in Michigan in 1982. ”
How was he allowed to teach anyones kids? I would think that the school should answer for that one. Thankfully it seems he didn’t do anything to the kids he was teaching.
I hope and pray that his family will be alright.
Perverts are out there and highly motivated. This guy is going up the river for touching people’s underwear and bodies.
It is a frightening thought that perhaps in many or some cases God or Mother Nature made them that way … who knows.
The creepiest part to me is that he has 4 daughters of his own.
I’m sure they’re better off without him around. Don’t drop the soap, Johnson.
BothgPartiesColludeAgainstUsAndMarketToYourFears said on 17 Oct 2008 at 7:35 am:
‘Perverts are out there and highly motivated. This guy is going up the river for touching people’s underwear and bodies.
It is a frightening thought that perhaps in many or some cases God or Mother Nature made them that way … who knows.
The creepiest part to me is that he has 4 daughters of his own.
I’m sure they’re better off without him around. Don’t drop the soap, Johnson.’
I wasn’t sure who this poster was until God was mentioned in the conversation. Rick Bentley/Naughtius Maximus, do you have a new alias???
Somehow the lefties will call you racist over this (and I have no idea what this Johnson’s ethnicity is).
Of course, Ben and Joey get excited and inspired by the likes of this Ted Johnson! Highly motivated perverts . . .
I too was disgusted with one of the last statements in the paper - Hardiman said Johnson had a misdemeanor sexual assault conviction in Michigan in 1982. How in the world was this allowed? How many other MCPS employees have records? Has this been addressed with the School Board? Why don’t Manassas citizens do something about this? Another reason this city is a joke to SOOOO many. Sad.
I remember all of the people on here when he was first arrested saying what a nice guy he was, he couldn’t have done it, etc. Well looks like that wasn’t the case here.
Just another opinion I do believe that someone will be looking into this. Anyone know how often school employees go through back ground checks? I hope it’s more than just when they are hired.
I too remember so many people saying here that he couldn’t possibly have done this. Yes, I know people are innocent until proven guilty, but the sort of blind allegiance so many had about Johson is the kind that makes a sexual predator all the more dangerous. People need to wake up and listen to the victims, not be unconditionally charmed by the perp just because he’s such a nice guy.
I thought he was creepy!
So did my own kids.
One quibble, Greg. Please call it “Osbourn.”
[Ed note: thanks for the correction.]
That guy was a creep. When 50% of the girls get a wierd vibe from him you know something’s up. I passed his class and never looked back.
TJ doesn’t have four girls. He has two girls (twins - age 13) and two older sons.
The conviction in MI in ‘82 is ancient history (what you do now can come back to haunt you 26 years from now, folks) and wasn’t with a minor. Rumor from the beginning of his teaching career in Manassas was that he’d gotten a bit too fresh with an adult female where he lived before and she’d pressed charges.
Prior to (I believe it was) 1995, there were no interstate record checks on teachers hired by Manassas City (as well as many other jurisdictions because of lack of interstate records access), and because it was a misdemeanor (not a felony charge or filed with Child Protective Services) it wouldn’t have come up anyway in a standard background check for a teacher at that time.
The whole thing is just a sad situation for all. Sad for the young girls affected. Sad for a teacher with an otherwise stellar career who gave a great deal to the MC band program. Sad for his children and wife who have to live with the situation, both personally and in the face of their community. Sad for many hundreds of students who looked up to him who are now stunned that the teacher they admired is capable of something like this.
I think it needs to be considered that perhaps he wasn’t some closet evil perv the whole time… because this would negate anything positive he’s done all along in some minds. Sometimes people snap and do things we wouldn’t expect. When people were asked to step forward you’ll notice that there were only these three girls, about the same age, and all the incidents had taken place all within recent months.
Perhaps something inside this man just snapped. It happens. It doesn’t mean he’s been a horrible teacher, father, friend, husband, community member all along. It means he broke and disappointed himself and everyone who counted on him to be a really good guy, in every way.
I’ve known him well over a decade. I can tell you that something inside of him became more stretched and strained over the last year or so. I worried for his health (physical as well as mental) and his ability to maintain with the schedule he kept for his students and teaching at so many schools all at once, plus the responsibilities he took on for his own four children. I did worry that he would fall off a ledge somewhere, but it doesn’t make it hurt less that this is the ledge he wound up falling off of.
Sometimes bad choices are made by decent people. It doesn’t mean they were indecent all along. Just my two cents worth but I’m sure the stone-throwing will begin at this point…
This is not to throw stones as you say, but to offer another experience and point of view. I think there were more feelings of discomfort amongst girls and boys in the OHS band than you were aware of. Look at the decline in the size of the band in the last 10 years. I personally know several girls who quit because he made them uncomfortable with looks, actions and comments. It doesn’t make him guilty of anything more than making them feel uncomfortable, but that is not the norm for any male teacher.
As to his “stress” from teaching in so many different schools… He was under far less stress than the average teacher in any public school today. He did not teach a class for which there is an SOL test or counts for AYP. He kept very few grades and if you ever checked Parent-Link, he had nothing up for the band students. His grades were quite arbitrary and if he didn’t like a student it was reflected in his grade for both boys and girls. I watched him humiliate a student (boy) that was not one of his favorites at band camp. I watched students who were favorites fall from favor if their parents were a little more vocal or questioned some of his actions. And make no mistake about it, he had his favorites and was quite obvious about it. He added to his own stress when he moved and a long drive became a part of his daily routine. That was a personal decision and it probably had a negative impact on his job and students.
As to the good things he did for the OHS band…. Indeed, I understand at one time that was very true, but that was at least 6-7 years ago. I know parents who were a part of that period of time and have also spoken to students of that era. I understood there was a time when he tried to make it possible for students to participate in sports and marching band and the band was excellent then. Cheerleaders were allowed to march in their cheer uniform at football games. Accommodations were made for students involved in spring sports and the beginning of marching band in the spring. Somewhere along the line he changed. My experience was that he made no allowances for involvement in any other activities, for the good of the band, of course. I understand the theory, but obviously it didn’t work. The band size continued to decline, the morale of the students declined and it became a vicious circle. He blamed the students for not being committed enough, he became more stressed and took it out on the kids, so they either dropped band or stayed because their parents didn’t want to see them quit and were less than committed.
He made a very serious mistake. He also had done some good things for the OHS band program and even the students who left the program for many different reasons recall both good and bad times. Each person he came in contact with has their own experience. It was his job to make it the best possible experience he could, as it is the job of any teacher. On that part he failed for many students. He truly did drive some good musicians and parents away from band and my feelings will be based on the experience I personally had and the way he treated MY children. If you had nothing but positive experiences, I’m very glad. That’s how it should be. But it is a fact that there are many students who did not share in the all positive and were made to feel uncomfortable, were hurt, humiliated and treated unfairly by this man. We will never know if there were connections between his actions prior to this incident. But for some, the saying “What goes around, comes around” is being shown to be true.
I was there as a student when he first started. I was also part of the group of band students that got together for the audition process between him and 2 other prospective teachers. Every single kid in the group and most of the parents that were there did not like him and preferred one of the other prospects. Our recommendations were not listened to for what I can only see as 1 of 2 reasons; 1) We were kids. “What do we know.” or 2) the person in charge of the music program for the entire city schools program didn’t like our choice because of some personal bias toward someone like him. (I’m not going to say what it was because it will turn the following posts into a different subject.)
I remember several of the girls in the band saying they were uncomfortable being in his office, alone, with the door shut, and the band room door shut but that was how he conducted business. One of the girls I dated said she thought he might have acted inappropriately but was unsure. Her solution was to not be around him alone, ever.
I remember being singled out by Ted. I was and still am an exceptional musician. I can only assume he was threatend by that since we played duets together, very early in his tenure, and I showed him up. He tried to affect my grades but couldn’t because I, along with my parents, were too vocal. Not to mention the fact that everyone knew that I was very good and should never receive less than an A.
Other people that were in the band with me said that they didn’t feel uncomfortable at all and did not think these charges had ant merit. But there was one girl (a close friend of mine in school) that the parents did confront the principal at that time and they were told that they needed to stop their allegations because they could be sued for slander. Oh, incidentally, all of the girls that said they didn’t see anything or feel uncomfortable were either very close friends or I dated them. And since my parents had confronted him about what they were hearing as well, I can only assume that he wouldn’t take the risk of trying anything with someone that I was close to.
He was a bad teacher and, according to his own admission, a dispicable human being. I hope knows that people in jail don’t like child molesters and he might not make it out. That might be why he accepted a plea to possibly avoid jail. Even though he deserves it.