7th Lawsuit Filed over Abuse by Sexual Predator Teacher Matthew Graziotti
By Frank Fernandez
Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy were negligent in their hiring and supervision of Matthew Graziotti, according to the latest lawsuit filed in the case of the former teacher and summer camp director convicted for sexually preying on young boys. The suit was filed Monday in Circuit Court by the parent of a child identified only as John Doe who lives in Volusia County. The family is represented by Morgan and Morgan, and one of the firm's attorneys working on the case is Belvin Perry Jr., the judge who presided over the Casey Anthony case and retired from the bench in 2014. (READ: Teacher's ex-wife warned of child abuse years ago.) Graziotti was sentenced on Jan. 26, 2015, to 210 years in federal prison. A federal prosecutor described him as a “skilled sexual predator” and said Graziotti sexually abused 29 children under the age of 12, some as young as 6. The latest lawsuit states that Graziotti sexually assaulted and took pornographic pictures of the child various times in 2013 and 2014. Graziotti took pictures of other minors as well, the suit states. Officials at the Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy could not be reached for comment. The suit is one of seven lawsuits filed in the case and the first one against the Edgewater Alliance Church. The other six were filed against Warner Christian Academy and its parent church, White Chapel Church of God. Graziotti's arrest in July 2014 shocked parents whose children attended Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona. Graziotti lived in Edgewater and had worked at Warner Christian since 2005 as a teacher and was director of its summer camp when he was arrested. Graziotti pleaded guilty in October 2014 to a nine-count federal indictment in which seven of the counts listed individual victims. The FBI found folders in Graziotti's computer titled “personally known” with 41 sub-folders with boys' names. The investigation found 8,761 images in Graziotti's computer, many depicting the “sexual abuse and exploitation of prepubescent males.” The lawsuit filed Monday lists five counts against Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy: negligence, negligent hiring, negligent retention, negligent supervision and invasion of privacy. The church and the school failed to adequately supervise Graziotti in order to prevent assaults against the children, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit also states that Graziotti showed the pornographic pictures of the child to other people and offered to sell them. “The photographs were seen by the friends and acquaintances of John Doe, a minor,” the suit states. David Lane, the lead pastor of Edgewater Alliance Church, said in an interview with the News-Journal in July 2014 that Graziotti volunteered and helped supervise the children's ministries at the church. Graziotti was not employed by the church and his membership was suspended after his arrest, Lane said at the time. While Graziotti was not arrested until 2014, red flags were going off a decade earlier. Graziotti's ex-wife wrote a list of Graziotti's disturbing behaviors, including that he slept with a child and was in bed rubbing a child's back, and gave it to a pastor at Friendship Community Church. That's were Graziotti served as a mentor and youth minister at the time. Pastor Tim McCardel turned the list over to Edgewater police. Dan Blazi, a city councilman who was a police detective at the time, interviewed several children in a 2004 investigation and while he suspected something was wrong he didn't have enough evidence to arrest Graziotti. McCardel dismissed Graziotti. After Blazi's asked questions at Edgewater Public School, where at the time Graziotti volunteered as a mentor, officials there told him his help would no longer be needed. Graziotti is being held at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. The federal Bureau of Prisons website lists Graziotti's release date as June 25, 2197.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.