Loading summary
Transcript161 lines
- [00:00]
A
From Spider man to a new Steven Spielberg movie. We know the TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer. I'm excited about this film. I just know suspense, intrigue, aliens, and
- [00:11]
B
I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.
- [00:13]
A
Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [00:20]
C
Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers and this is embedded from NPR. We're sharing this series the Girls by Louisville Public Media. It's the latest season of their investigative podcast dig, and this is episode two. If you haven't heard episode one, go back and listen to it first. In the last episode, we heard about alleged abuse by two educators in Louisville, Kentucky that happened over two decades. And as a reminder, both men, Ronnie and Donnie Stoner, deny the allegations and declined interview requests by the show. Zach Kilgore, who is also accused of rape, is on the run so couldn't be reached for an interview. In this episode, reporter Jess Clark traces what happened when other accusers reported their experiences to authorities. Heads up that there is some cursing in this episode. Here's reporter Jess Clark.
- [01:12]
A
It's August 2022 days before the start of the school year for Jefferson County Public Schools. And to get staff pumped up, Jackson JCPS is holding an administrator kickoff, a back to school celebration at the city's historic Brown Theater downtown. JCPS Superintendent Marty Polio takes the stage and calls on staff to be, quote, braver leaders than you've ever been. Later, the Jefferson county association of School Administrators hands out awards selected by members through a vote. Polio huddles up for a photo with a muscular man in a light gray suit, 2022's middle school youth Service center coordinator of year. They smile for the camera under their Covid era face masks. The school year would start days later, but what no one said during the speeches and ceremony was that the man in the light gray suit wouldn't be returning to school with everyone else. Ronnie Stoner, 2022 Middle school youth Service Center Coordinator of the Year, would report on the first day to a building miles away from the hallways and classrooms of Newburgh Middle. Because when the school administrat gave Ronnie his award, the district was investigating him for child sex abuse. This is Digg Season 3, a podcast from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. I'm Jess Clark.
- [02:42]
D
Do you guys want an apple or banana? Whatever it is, I want that apple.
- [02:48]
A
21 year old Alyssa Foster is cutting up a snack one afternoon at her kitchen counter. Her daughter, a bouncy two Year old with a head full of brown curls is at her heels, along with her partner's three year old son. Alyssa calls him her bonus baby. In the other room, a kid's show is playing on the TV and a giant drawing pad and markers have recently been put away. Alyssa's whole life revolves around these two toddlers. And that's very intentional.
- [03:16]
D
If my parents would have thought that way, even for a second, my life would have never turned out to be what it was. And same for my partner. So we just try to keep that in mind always.
- [03:25]
A
Alyssa had a difficult childhood. Her mom left when she was five and then her dad went to prison. She floated between her grandmother's house and foster families as a kid and she was angry. For Alyssa today, every apple slice and diaper change and kiss goodnight is an act of love. But it's also a kind of proof
- [03:45]
D
that it's not that hard, that they're not that hard to love. It's not that hard to stay. You know, that's, it's, it's, it's not that fucking hard. So maybe it's half of me wanting to be a mom. My whole life was just to prove that it's not that hard to love and to stay with your kid and to do right by your child. Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head.
- [04:10]
A
Alyssa's experiences gave her a firm sense of justice. She's quick to speak out when something doesn't sit right with her. Alyssa was the first alleged victim of either Stoner brother to come forward publicly about her abuse. In 2023, Alyssa saw that Donnie Stoner had been reassigned from his position as head football coach at Manual High School. She posted on Facebook about her experience with Ronnie, Donnie's twin brother. The post took on a life of its own. Other women commented and reposted and DM'd her, saying they too had experienced grooming or sexual assaul. Ronnie Stoner.
- [04:47]
D
I can't sleep at night knowing that he is still employed by a school system. And each one of us just have to move on with our lives and continue to let him do what he's doing. So it's just as simple as I, I can't let it continue.
- [05:03]
A
Today Ronnie is facing dozens of charges related to child sex abuse. But when Alyssa made her Facebook post, Ronnie had been promoted to a safety administrator job at Manual High School and was coaching football. She days after Alyssa went public, the district reassigned Ronnie to a bus compound and then to a district warehouse away from children where he collected the same annual salary he made in his role as safety administrator at manual, more than $80,000 a year. Ronnie was fired in September for failing to report to work. Donnie, his twin, was also reassigned out of a teaching role to a bus compound after Manual High School student Abby Jones came forward with her allegations. Donnie kept his job for almost two years after that. He was fired in April of this year for failing to return from medical leave. When Alyssa met Ronnie Stoner, she was in eighth grade. She was his student at Newburgh Middle school for the 2016, 2017 school year.
- [06:02]
D
Previous to meeting Ronnie, I had already had, like, so, so much trauma in my life, but also within the last, that last year of being in foster care, it was a lot more significant.
- [06:14]
A
Alyssa says she was in about eight foster placements. When she was 13, she says she was raped and sexually abused by a foster mother's boyfriend, a man in his 40s. I called him. He denied the allegations.
- [06:27]
D
So really, I just. I had no respect for authority. I didn't care about what anything anybody said. I thought it was my way or the highway. I thought I could do whatever I want. I figured that I was grown, that I had been through enough, that I was big girl enough.
- [06:40]
A
As a result of all her trauma, Alyssa had a hard time making friends and was dealing with a lot of behavioral issues. That's how she wound up meeting Rani Stoner. She was in trouble in the cafeteria. She doesn't remember why, but she was separated from her peers. Ronnie approached her and started up a conversation.
- [06:57]
D
This conversation starts out casual. I don't really remember any of it. And then the one thing that stuck out to me was, oh, you think you're grown, huh? And I responded with, yeah, because at the time, I genuinely did. I thought I was a big girl.
- [07:12]
A
Ronnie was the homeschool coordinator, an educator who worked with students who have low attendance or frequent behavioral issues. These educators often connect students and families to mental health providers, transportation, and food pantries. Basically, Ronnie's role was to work intimately with some of JCPS's most vulnerable students. Later that same year, Alyssa was in trouble again, and she was sent to Ronnie's office. Ronnie's room was in a suite of administrator offices. At first, Alyssa could hear other staff chatting in the lobby outside. Then those adults left, and then the door was shut.
- [07:49]
D
And that's kind of when, I guess my brain, like, stuck up to try to, you know, pay attention and, like, scope out, like, what's happening right now. He said a couple things like, do you like me? Do you like older guys, you have a boyfriend. And then next thing I remember, he was unclipping his belt, like, standing probably 2, 3ft, like, directly in front of where I was sitting, and he pulled his penis out in front of my face.
- [08:17]
A
She says Ronnie coerced her into performing oral sex on him right there in his middle school office. He was in his early 30s. She was 13. For the rest of the school year, Alyssa says the abuse continued mostly during the school day and mostly in his office, but also in his car and at his home.
- [08:36]
D
And he would tell me that he loved me and that he was going to go through all the process to adopt me out of foster care so that I could live with him and we could be together and, you know, not have to hide.
- [08:45]
A
She says the abuse stopped when she went to high school. Unfortunately, what happened to Alyssa isn't unique. One study shows as many as one in nine girls has experienced child sex abuse at the hands of an adult perpetrator. And if you've been watching headlines in Kentucky, sexual abuse by educators is probably not news to you.
- [09:06]
C
A former Troy County High school teacher is facing several charges, all stemming tonight.
- [09:10]
B
A former Anderson county band director is pleading guilty.
- [09:13]
A
A Southern Kentucky teacher is now facing sexual abuse charges.
- [09:17]
B
Owensboro public school superintendent has been federally indicted.
- [09:20]
A
Now a Rowan county teacher and coach is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. Over the past several years, headlines have been littered with child sex abuse cases involving Kentucky teachers, coaches, band directors, even a district superintendent. In a recent review by the Lexington Herald Leader, 61% of Kentucky teachers who lost their licenses lost them because of sexual misconduct. That's 118 teachers over a five year period. And those numbers don't include educators without certification, like teaching assistants or bus drivers or homeschool coordinators like Ronnie was. Elizabeth Jeglick is a professor and clinical psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She's part of a growing group of researchers trying to figure out how widespread child sex abuse is in schools.
- [10:13]
E
Childhood sexual abuse in general is understudied. It is, you know, a problem that is growing in recognition.
- [10:19]
A
Jeglick led a 2022 study which found that about 12% of students experienced sexual misconduct by a school staff member. Most of that was not physical misconduct. It was behavior like sexual comments or special attention. A little less than 1% reported more serious abuse like kissing, groping, or sexual intercourse.
- [10:40]
E
So when we extrapolate that number to all the kids who are in school currently in the US that's over half a million kids who've experienced childhood sexual abuse by an educator.
- [10:53]
A
Jeglik thinks the real number might be bigger since her survey respondents were undergraduate students who may have been less likely targets for abusers. Jeglic says abusers tend to target vulnerable kids who are less likely to attend college. Kids with behavioral issues, for example, like
- [11:10]
E
Alyssa, because kids with behavioral problems are known as the quote, unquote, bad kids, right? And so these are kids that are most likely to lie and fabricate things, you know, to get out of trouble, for example, and so that if they say, you know, so and so is abusing me, they'll just say, well, the, the abuser, who is usually an upstanding member of the community, will say, well, that's Johnny. Johnny is a bad kid. You know, you know that Johnny lies.
- [11:32]
A
One 2024 study found that over the last 20 years, child sex abuse in many youth serving organizations like ymcas and Big Brothers Big Sisters went down, but educator child sex abuse went up. Jeglick says that maybe because policies meant to prevent child sex abuse in schools aren't being followed, like reporting requirements and open door policies. Jeglick says educators are fairly well versed in following policies and procedures when they suspect abuse by a parent or family member, but not so much when it comes to their own colleagues.
- [12:06]
E
Mandated reporter statutes were passed back in the late 60s, early 70s. It was focused on, you know, kids who are being abused in the home. And because teachers would see them, they would be the ones that would be able to recognize and report this to the authorities. And then, you know, the goal would be, as we're recognizing, you know, who perpetrators are and that teachers can be perpetrators, that they would be included in the trainings and things like that, but it's still largely left out. We're not saying, you know, you yourselves can be perpetrators of how do you report a colleague and what do you do and what are boundary crossing behavior like? It's still like we're still not doing that in a systematic kind of way.
- [12:41]
A
One important policy, Jeglic says, is for administrators to keep records of potential sexual misconduct in employees personnel files, even if the allegations aren't ultimately substantiated or even if they're what she calls boundary violations, early grooming behaviors that can lead to sexual abuse.
- [12:59]
E
It might be, you know, they're giving one student a lot of attention and it might be, you know, that student was having a rough time, but you talk to the person, you have a conversation about it, you note it in their file, and you have a retraining,
- [13:10]
A
robust training and reporting requirements is also important, Jlich says. But that's not happening in jcps. Training is limited to a twice a year memo from the superintendent reminding employees of reporting requirements, along with an 18 minute YouTube video that must be rewatched every two years. The video does not address what to do if the suspect is a school employee. By the time Rani allegedly abused Alyssa at Newberg middle school in 2016, there was already one red flag in his file. An allegation of sexual misconduct from two years earlier at Fern Creek High School. Jeglic says most students don't report educator sexual misconduct, but 15 year old lady Moore took a chance. Lady Moore is 27 today and works as an EKG tech at a local hospital. She just got off her shift. I met her at her childhood home. Is your, like, old bedroom in here? I see it.
- [14:11]
D
Okay. Okay.
- [14:13]
B
It's empty now.
- [14:15]
A
Right in there. Did you have any, like, special decorations or anything?
- [14:20]
B
Mirrors.
- [14:20]
A
Mirrors.
- [14:21]
B
Mirrors on each wall.
- [14:22]
A
Like Alyssa and Alexis. Lady says she was in trouble a lot in high school. She was working through some trauma, including being sexually abused as a young child. Ronnie Stoner was Fern Creek High School's assistant JV football coach. Ronnie coached at Fern Creek for years. His brother Donnie did too, until Donnie moved on to Manual and they began a kind of twin versus twin rivalry. The local TV station Wave 3 did a whole story on it.
- [14:51]
B
It is a matchup of siblings for the ages as Fern Creek offensive coordinator Ronnie Stoner matches up against his twin brother, Manual defensive coordinator Donnie Stoner. Both are extremely competitive with each other. I always seem to think that I'm the better athlete. Yeah, he's been saying that from day one. But admit it's weird facing their twin on the other sideline. To be separated and have to coach against each other is just. It's just a weird feeling.
- [15:22]
A
That was Ronnie saying he always thought he was the better athlete. In February 2014, Ronnie, aka Coach Stoner, was just six days into his first classroom position in JCPS. He was running in school suspension or ISAP at Fern Creek High School. Lady was in his classroom one Friday.
- [15:43]
B
It's crazy because I feel like I can remember the same day. I was in the back corner of the ISAP classroom and I remember looking up and he stood up, went to the door and motioned me to come outside. And then, of course, I'm in school, I'm in trouble. So I'm like, okay. I gets up and I go.
- [15:57]
A
Lady says he looked up and down the hallway to make sure no one was around. He Asked her if she could keep a secret. She said yes.
- [16:04]
B
From there, he was like, I want you. And I'm like, what do you mean, you want me? And then he pulls me closer. He's looking, his lips looking at me down. It's like, yeah, I need that. I want you.
- [16:13]
A
Lady pulled away and went back into the classroom, waiting on pins and needles for ISAP to be over.
- [16:19]
B
I was. It felt like it took forever. I mean, I was just sitting there shaking like. Like I just couldn't believe it.
- [16:24]
A
Finally, class ended on Monday. Lady went to the office.
- [16:28]
B
I went straight to administration and said something. I did the right thing, she says.
- [16:31]
A
The assistant principal, the head of security, and a couple other administrators huddled in an office and pulled security footage from the hallway. They called her mom, and all of them watched it together. The whole interaction was on tape with one hitch. There was no sound.
- [16:46]
B
So it's like we can't determine what's really being. What's going on. We just see them in the hallway.
- [16:51]
A
The principal ran it up the chain for a district investigation. In jcps, many of these kinds of educator misconduct inquiries are run through an office called Compliance and Investigations. They look into whether educators have broken district policies or codes of ethics and decide whether to apply discipline, like suspension or termination. Lady said she had to stay home from school for two weeks while the investigation unfolded. They had her write a statement in her neat, bubbly handwriting. I got a copy from the district to show her.
- [17:22]
B
It is crazy to see this and just nothing happened.
- [17:27]
A
Ronnie made a statement, too. The first time Ronnie was interviewed by district investigators, he denied knowing who lady was and said he didn't recognize her photo. But the next day, he contacted the investigator to say he did remember her and that he took her into the hallway because she stuck her tongue out. The district investigator reviewed the video footage and decided that even though the body language matched Lady's description of events, she couldn't reach a conclusion because there was no audio. Ronnie kept his job, and lady continued to have him for isap. She says her classmates bullied her the rest of the year, saying she tried to get their coach in trouble. Even some staff seemed less friendly toward her.
- [18:10]
B
I now see why young females don't say nothing when something like that happens, because no one listens. It's just like I told y'.
- [18:18]
F
All.
- [18:18]
B
I warned y'. All. And now look at all these girls who y' all could have prevented or helped. And nothing.
- [18:24]
A
Ladies. Allegation against Ronnie was reported to Child Protective Services, or cps, under the Kentucky Cabinet for health and family services. Kentucky state law requires all adults to contact police or the cabinet if they know about or even suspect child abuse. In Kentucky, school staff members have to follow a specific protocol. They have to immediately call CPS and then tell the school principal. Through an open records request, I got documentation that CPS had on Ronnie. Ladies 2014 complaint is included. But there was another school report in there, too, from a different incident in 2018. That surprised me because there's no mention of a 2018 incident in Ronnie's JCPS files. No investigation, no reassignment, nothing. According to the CPS report, in November 2018, a Newberg Middle School assistant principal called CPS saying a student reported Ronnie was making her uncomfortable. The student was a foster child who had regular check ins with Rani. I wanted to find out more about what happened with this complaint. Usually this would be very difficult because the state redacts the child's name and the names of anyone making the report. But I had a stroke of luck. The agency made a mistake. They left the foster child's first name unredacted in one sentence. Katrina. The CPS report isn't straightforward to interpret, so I called up a former CPS worker for help. She pointed me to a name listed along with some codes on the report and said it might be the last name of the parent of the foster child. So I had a possible last name. Probus. Katrina Probus didn't pop up on any social media, but when I searched court records, I found her as a party to an unrelated case in 2023. And right there on the original police citation was a phone number.
- [20:18]
F
Hello?
- [20:19]
G
Hi, is this Katrina?
- [20:21]
H
Yes, ma'. Am. Who's this?
- [20:22]
A
Katrina Probus Cooper is 20 years old today and lives in Lexington, Kentucky. She remembers making the complaint against Ronnie.
- [20:30]
H
Yeah, that was me.
- [20:32]
A
Katrina was 13 years old, just like Alyssa. Katrina was in foster care, so she got to know Ronnie.
- [20:39]
H
He was just like, really flirtatious is really kind of weird. I don't know. And he one day he kept asking me, when can he kidnap me? And I was like, what? I was like, that is absolutely outrageous. You can never do that. And then one day I had got like, a boyfriend. And, you know, he always seemed to be, like, super close to me for some reason. And he was like, oh, you're cheating on me. I'm like, sir, this is not a relationship going on here.
- [21:09]
A
She went to her assistant principal, Bernard Estefan. Estefan reported the interaction to cps. The next day, I read back to Katrina what the CPS worker Wrote about that call.
- [21:21]
G
Juvenile explained to her case manager that he got weird. Coach Stoner would ask her, do you like me? According to the juvenile, he would say, I like you because you are mature.
- [21:31]
H
Oh, yeah, he did say that. He said because I was in foster care. Yeah. That I've been through so much and look at life different. Weird stuff like that.
- [21:40]
A
But she says Estefan did not react how she expected.
- [21:43]
G
Did you feel like you were believed by your principal when you told him?
- [21:48]
H
No, they definitely totally brushed me off. And they told me, since I keep getting in trouble. I don't know exact words, but they tell me, since I keep getting in trouble, that's the reason that he said that he was going to pull me out the classroom. Like, that's what the kidnapping part meant.
- [22:05]
A
This is also the explanation that Estefan gave to cps. According to the report, Katrina says Estefan told her he was going to see what Ronnie had to say, which would have been against district policy. Staff are supposed to go straight to CPS and the principal when there are allegations like this and are not supposed to confront the staff member accused of misconduct.
- [22:25]
H
Well, it really made me, like, feel upset because I've been through, you know, like, rape and all that stuff when I was younger. So I felt like that was something very important for them to take serious, you know, since you never know what someone's true intentions are.
- [22:39]
G
Right.
- [22:40]
H
And then telling him I made the report on him, that could have went bad.
- [22:45]
A
There's another CPS report in the same case. This often happens in schools where educators risk being fired if they don't follow reporting requirements. The second report has a response from Ronnie. It says Ronnie couldn't remember making any inappropriate comments to Katrina and that Ronnie said it was Katrina who hugs and conversations. CPS declined to investigate the case, saying the student was not at risk at this time for sexual harm. The CPS report says the information was supposed to be forwarded to JCPS and to lmpd, but there's no documentation showing any investigation by police or the school district. The CPS worker does note someone named Ronnie Stoner had been reported before in 2014. This was lady's case, but that Ronnie was reported at Fern Creek High School. The investigator wrote, quote, unclear if this is the same person. I showed this documentation to Lady Moore, and it's crazy.
- [23:45]
B
Here they are talking about my incident. This is referral in 2014 with Stoner at the school at Fern Creek High School. Like, this isn't ringing alarms to y'. All. Someone else has now came forward like, and I literally have it right here. Like, it's. It happened. That is crazy to me. That is crazy. Yeah. Fern Creek failed me. JCPS failed us. CPS failed her. CPS failed her.
- [24:21]
A
I reached out to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which oversees CPS numerous times over the course of my report reporting to try to understand their protocols and the decisions they made. They never made anyone available for an interview. A JCPS spokesperson declined a request for an interview with the head of compliance and investigations. I really wanted to ask them how it was possible that Katrina's incident wouldn't have triggered a district investigation. I looked at district policies and state laws and found a potential loophole. Principals have to call CPS when there are allegations of sexual misconduct, but when it comes to running it up the chain for a school district inquiry, they have discretion. In Katrina's case, it appears the investigation stopped at the school level. It meant there was no record of Katrina's allegations in Ronnie's file. And while the next principal to hire Ronnie, could have seen the 2014 incident with lady, they would have no idea about the 2018 incident with Katrina, making it harder to identify a pattern of concerning behavior. I called the principal at the time, Nicole Adele, several times to ask why she didn't contact the district's compliance and investigations department. She never picked up. Neither did Estefan, the assistant principal who took the initial report. Estefan has since left the district to teach at Saint X, a private all boys Catholic school. All right, we're in business.
- [25:49]
I
Alrighty.
- [25:50]
A
Republican State House Representative James Tipton has for years been trying to pass legislation that would tighten reporting requirements to prevent alleged abusers from moving between schools and districts. But year after year, that legislation fails to gain support from key Republican leaders who control what makes it to the floor for a vote.
- [26:11]
I
The main point of opposition that I've run into is the concern about false accusations.
- [26:16]
A
Research shows false allegations of child sex abuse do happen, but are quite rare. After reviewing my findings, Tipton agreed there might be a problem with reporting requirements in schools.
- [26:27]
I
I hate to use the word loophole, but there is a disconnect there.
- [26:30]
A
And he pointed out that his most recent piece of legislation would have addressed it.
- [26:35]
I
The way the bill is drafted, once a complaint is made by someone to a teacher, whatever administrator, you know, he goes to the principal of that school, and then it goes on up to the superintendent.
- [26:48]
A
It has to go to the superintendent.
- [26:49]
I
Has to go to the superintendent.
- [26:50]
A
Which would mean the district would be made aware of the allegations and would be required not only to open an investigation, but to finish it. Even if the employee resigns, Tipton is still hopeful that one day Kentucky will pass this bill.
- [27:06]
I
I believe if I could ever get it on the floor, I could get it passed, because I think the majority of people, you know, sometimes it's a process.
- [27:13]
A
A number of states have recently passed similar bills. Advocates call them pass the trash legislation. What stands out to me about Katrina's report is how consistent Ronnie's language is across the three allegations from Fern Creek and Newburgh. In all three, the girls describe him as saying, do you like me or I like you or I want you? According to both Alyssa and Katrina's allegations, Ronnie says or implies that his alleged victims are more grown up than other girls their age. And then there are the similarities among his accusers. We talked to six women for this podcast. They all had difficult childhoods, from experiencing abuse or neglect to being put in foster care. They had behavioral problems as teenagers. Lady Moore was haunted by this after she met the other women.
- [28:05]
B
So it's like every girl that I met with, it's like they've all went through something. Foster or already been molested, or we went through something like, how do you know how to hunt those girls down? Like, you know the ones to, you're. You're the target. Because I'm like, it's a thousand girls. And I said, why pick me?
- [28:22]
A
Ronnie and Donnie Stoner are just two of a number of coaches who have been in the news in the past several years for alleged sexual misconduct. It's raised questions about how well school districts are documenting who is coaching where. Ronnie and Donnie's personnel files track all their coaching assignments. But I wondered how well JCPS was keeping tabs on their coaching staff overall, including volunteers. So I asked the district to pull files on one former coach I knew had already been convicted. In March, Austin Williams, the former girls basketball coach at Butler High School, pleaded guilty to sexting one of his 16 year old players. I requested all JCPS's personnel files on Williams. They responded that they had no record Williams had ever worked or volunteered for jcps, not even a background check. I asked JCPS if they had some kind of master list of coaches that would show which people coached which teams when they don't. Yeah, if you could sit at the head of the table, please.
- [29:24]
B
Yep, no problem.
- [29:27]
A
Kentucky State Auditor Alison Ball agreed to meet me at her office in Frankfurt, the state's capital. Ball is a Republican, and as state auditor, she runs an office that's a kind of watchdog over tax dollars. And public resources. She was in the middle of a controversial audit of Jefferson county public Schools, the governance of which has been heavily politicized. I asked Ball what she thought about the lack of documentation around coaches in the district.
- [29:53]
J
Well, that's actually really worrying from an auditor's perspective, because what we do primarily is we review documents. We do conduct interviews. But a lot of what we do is based on what's in a record. That's how we find out information.
- [30:05]
A
Ball's office recently finished an audit of the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky High school Athletic association, or khsaa. One of her recommendations was that the KHSAA start maintaining a centralized list of coaches who are under investigation for sexual misconduct. Right now, that doesn't exist.
- [30:25]
J
We want to know if there's an investigation or charge of any kind with a minor. So not just within your coaching role, but in anything you're doing. So. So this is the kind of thing that should be caught, should be stopped before it goes. There shouldn't be a second occurrence. It should end right there.
- [30:41]
A
I wanted to ask the KHSAA what it would take to create that kind of record, but commissioner Julian Tackett did not respond to an interview request. After a break, we'll come back to Alyssa Foster and her decision to speak out. This is Dig from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. This is dig. I'm Jess Clark. While privately Rani's alleged abuse went unchecked, publicly, Ronnie was nearing the top of his game by 2021. In September, JCPS's public relations team invited local media to Newburgh Middle School to see what officials called the first licensed in school barbershop in the state. Emanuel became the first official customer of
- [31:33]
B
cuts for kids barbershop. Inside the school, something as simple as a haircut plays a major role in academic success.
- [31:40]
A
Wlky and Spectrum News profiled Ronnie as the educator behind the initiative, which provided free haircuts to students. Soner believes the in school barbershop will lead to educational and lifestyle growth.
- [31:52]
B
They're going to walk these halls with a different kind of walk. They're going to communicate differently. They're going to learn differently.
- [32:01]
A
Near the end of the school year, JCPS offered Ronnie a big promotion. A position at Manual high School, his alma mater and one of the most prestigious schools in the state. The school where he played football as a student and where his brother Donnie was about to become head football coach. It wasn't just any position. Ronnie's new role was Manual High School's safety administrator. It was a role that Gave him power over a whole team of security personnel, access to security cameras and other technology, his own office, and an $80,000 annual salary.
- [32:36]
D
What do you see? Sad. Sad. Where's happy? Happy, happy.
- [32:43]
A
It was around that time that alyssa Foster turned 18 and found out she was pregnant with a baby girl. She hadn't seen or heard from Ronnie in years. Alyssa started thinking a lot about what it meant to care for a child, someone so precious and so vulnerable.
- [32:58]
D
I was about to become a mother and, you know, have that responsibility over children myself and to know what that instinct feels like, to protect and to love and, you know, to keep someone safe, A child safe.
- [33:09]
A
And what a betrayal it was for Ronnie Stoner, her educator, to have done what he allegedly did to her when she was a 13 year old foster child at Newburgh Middle School.
- [33:19]
D
I cannot go on and my life knowing that it could be somebody else's little 13 year old baby right now, or in 13 years, he could still work at a school that my baby's going to attend.
- [33:29]
A
She decided to get a lawyer to help her take Ronnie to court. And one name rose to the top of the list. Louisville attorney David Ma. He had made a name for himself defending people arrested for protesting the police killing of Breonna Taylor in 2020 and had a high profile in progressive circles. Alyssa said she and Maurer talked briefly on the phone, and then the next day he came to her apartment complex to get more details and seal the deal with a contract.
- [33:56]
D
And I came downstairs in the lobby. We sat at a table. He didn't have any real paperwork written up. He just kind of wrote some down on a notepad, and that was our contract that I signed.
- [34:06]
A
From there, they corresponded, mostly by text. Alyssa says Maurer wasn't particularly responsive, but she had never had legal representation before. In May, Maurer texted to say he had informed JCPS about her allegations against Ronnie along with the Louisville Metro Police Department, and that he hoped Ronnie would be reassigned from his position working with kids. The district did decide to investigate. They reassigned Ronnie. And JCPS records show a school board attorney reached out to David Maurer in mid August of 2022 to schedule an interview with Alyssa. The JCPS attorney followed up 10 more times over the next two months. But Maurer never set up the interview, even after the attorney warned him that failing to respond would lead the district to close the case. Meanwhile, the district was also reaching out to Ronnie. They set up a zoom meeting in early October. After answering a few questions about his work duties, investigators brought up Alyssa's Name? Ronnie said he remembered her soon after his defense attorney advised him not to answer any more questions until they had the allegations in writing. His attorney at the time was Tricia Lister. Lister is now a member of the Jefferson County Board of Education. She did not respond to a request for comment for this podcast. The meeting ended, but the district followed up to warn Ronnie that he must answer their questions or face termination in the next interview. A week later, the district's attorney asked Ronnie if he had talked to Alyssa by phone recently. Ronnie said no. He said Alyssa didn't even have his number. But we have screenshots showing Facebook messages between Alyssa and Ronnie setting up a call about a year earlier. And we have a recording of that call.
- [35:54]
D
Let's talk. What's up?
- [35:57]
F
Let's talk.
- [35:57]
A
Good.
- [35:58]
F
Let's talk.
- [36:00]
A
Alyssa says she was trying to get Ronnie to admit that he had abused her while she secretly recorded the conversation. That's legal in Kentucky. You can record any conversation you're a part of, even if the others aren't aware. But Ronnie never admitted to anything on the call, and he tried to get her to meet him in person.
- [36:18]
D
For what? We can talk here.
- [36:22]
F
Talk over the phone or text. Doesn't give off the same emotions that I would personally.
- [36:30]
A
Instead of admitting he talked to her on the phone, Ronnie told investigators a very strange story. According to Ronnie, in the LATTER Half of 2021, he was cutting the grass outside a doctor's office in the East End when Alyssa appeared, asked for his number, and came on to him. When investigators asked him why he thought she would make up allegations that he abused her at Newberg, his response was, quote, because she is obsessed with me. I asked Alyssa about this story. It says that you went to talk to him while he was mowing the lawn or something like that.
- [37:07]
D
Oh, girl, let's get into it. So I actually just Googled the other day. How long do they keep traffic cameras? Because if there's any way in the world that we can pull up that day and it's to happen, it needs to happen. So what?
- [37:21]
A
What happened?
- [37:22]
D
Nothing. That's the thing. Nothing happened. That whole entire story from the second he opened his mouth. I read the whole thing. I seen it. It's fabricated.
- [37:30]
A
Alyssa says she's never seen Rani outside of her eighth grade year, except for one day in ninth grade when he drove her to school. The only interaction they had was the one you heard about earlier. The messages and that brief phone call, which Ronnie told investigators never happened. And as you heard on that phone call, it was Ronnie who wanted to meet in person, and Alyssa who didn't want to.
- [37:54]
D
I can't say much on the story other than it's quite literally completely fabricated. He was never mowing grass. I never saw him anywhere. We never had a conversation like that. It quite literally never happened. If there was any way they could pull up traffic cams, business cams, and pull up where he's talking about, you'll see. He was never there. I was never there. It never happened. Happen.
- [38:14]
A
But the investigators never dug into that story because they closed the case after attempting to reach Mauer, Alyssa's attorney, 11 times over two months. JCPS gave up. In November 2022, an investigator wrote that she found Alyssa's allegations of child sexual abuse unsubstantiated because Alyssa was never made available for an interview and because Ronnie denied those allegations. Ronnie went back to work and was allowed to take his promotion as safety administrator at Manual High School. Alyssa says she never even knew the district wanted to talk to her because Maurer never told her she found out. Months after Rani was reinstated, a local activist named Gay Adelman requested records from jcps. When Adelman showed Alyssa that her attorney had failed to respond, she was furious.
- [39:06]
D
So he knew from day one. I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell my story. I was open to tell it to anybody that would listen. And he never told me, not one time, that anybody was even trying to get in touch with me.
- [39:17]
A
Alyssa did want to tell her story. By then, she'd met other women who said they were also abused by the twins and wanted to tell their stories, too. She had encouraged them to sign on to her case. Once she found out Mauer had cost her the chance to talk to jcps, she emailed him to terminate her agreement. Alyssa still wants to know why. Why her attorney, who was supposed to represent her interests, failed to let her know about a key opportunity for justice and to possibly remove Ronnie's access to more children. I called Maurer to try to find out.
- [39:51]
G
Hi, is this David Maurer?
- [39:53]
F
It is.
- [39:54]
G
Hi. This is Jess Clark again with KYC ir.
- [39:56]
A
Yes, at first, Maurer said he couldn't talk to me about the case because Alyssa and the other women had terminated their agreement.
- [40:03]
F
Yeah, they. They wanted to go to someone else,
- [40:06]
H
and I'm like, okay, Yeah, I think so.
- [40:08]
G
I actually wanted to ask you about that because I spoke with Alyssa, and I think the reason they wanted to go somewhere else is because they got some records back showing that JCPS reached out to you, like, 10 times over several months trying to get an Interview in the compliance and investigations case against Ronnie. And so I wanted to ask you kind of like what happened with that.
- [40:37]
F
I can't comment on that because it would violate attorney client privilege.
- [40:40]
G
So.
- [40:41]
F
And. And they've been, you know, they're. They went to another attorney who. I think they've left that attorney now.
- [40:48]
H
So you can't.
- [40:49]
G
You don't want to tell me why you never responded to jcps?
- [40:55]
F
I can't, no.
- [40:57]
G
Okay. Did you know that after you didn't respond that Ronnie was reinstated and went back to his. His position because they couldn't?
- [41:07]
F
No, I'm not aware of that.
- [41:08]
G
Yeah. What do you think about that?
- [41:10]
F
I'm not aware of that. I mean, I can't comment on any of it. Only because I have duties to the former clients that I can't divulge anything.
- [41:21]
H
Well, they.
- [41:21]
G
They have given me permission to talk to you about it, so they actually would like to understand from you why you didn't.
- [41:27]
F
I understand, but they would have to get that permission. They would have to give that permission to me, not to you.
- [41:34]
G
So if I call them and ask them to email you to say that you would talk with me, you would speak with me about it.
- [41:42]
F
That's possible. I mean, I don't know.
- [41:44]
G
Okay, I will ask them to email you.
- [41:47]
F
Okay. Thank you.
- [41:48]
G
Okay. Thank you.
- [41:51]
A
Alexis Crook and Alyssa sent him that email saying he could speak with me. I called him back, but he still wouldn't discuss it. Throughout this reporting, I've been struck by how many systems failed these women. Systems intended to deliver opportunity, protection, justice. None of them worked. Next time on Dink, we'll hear from another alleged victim of Ronnie Stoner, someone Alyssa passed in the hall each day at Newburgh. Ronnie's own daughter.
- [42:22]
B
I called the police and I told them that I was planning on running away and that I was scared for my life and that I was being sexually assaulted.
- [42:31]
A
That's next time on Digg from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. Dig is produced by the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting at Louisville Public Media. This season was reported by me, Jess Clark, and edited by Jake Ryan and Laura Ellis. Special thanks to Morgan Watkins, Michelle Tyreen Johnson, Roberto Roldan, Amina Elahi, Joe Sanka, Kelly Wilkinson and Laura Atkinson. Kojun Teshiro created our theme music with assistance from from Ryan Marsh, photos by Justin Hicks and Gisele Rhoden, and illustrations by Effie Chalikapoulou. Our work is community funded. Visit kydig.org and click donate to help make reporting like this possible.
- [43:25]
C
That was the second episode of the Girls from Dig and we have an update since this episode was published. In the fall of 2025, Kentucky State House Representative James Tipton again introduced a bill that would make it harder for teachers accused of sexual misconduct to move between school districts. Earlier versions of the bill didn't pass. Opponents said they were concerned about due process for teachers who were falsely accused of crimes and keeping victims names anonymous if they schools weren't allowed to use non disclosure agreements. But in 2026, his bill, which bans non disclosure agreements between school districts and educators who are accused of sexual misconduct, passed and was turned into law. We'll be back with the next episode of the Girls. Hearing stories like this one can bring up painful feelings and memories, especially if you're a trauma survivor yourself. If you need to talk, you can reach the Rainn National Sexual assault hotline at 800-656. Hope you'll find that number and more mental health resources in our show.
- [44:34]
H
Notes.