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Family says TUSD let sex abuser move school to school

On staff despite history of abuse allegations
Posted at 7:19 PM, Nov 04, 2019
and last updated 2019-11-04 23:50:34-05

TUCSON, Ariz. - How could a man be accused of making obscene comments to school children at least twice and still work for the Tucson Unified School District?

That's the question at the heart of a lawsuit by parents and a middle school student who say the man touched her in a sexual way.

John Angel Corral has been fired from TUSD now. He's on probation after pleading guilty to aggravated assault for touching the teenaged girl at the heart of this lawsuit.

But her parents ask why he was still in the schools after TUSD acknowledged and disciplined him for two other cases dating as far back at 17 years.

The girl’s father says, “It's still tough for adult, a woman to even come forward. This is a 13-year-old child coming forward telling you that someone's touching her and doing things. And then after we found out that there was more."

For their daughter's privacy we will know her father by the initial's D.G and her mother by Y.G.

They say 46 year old John Angel Corral was working as a TUSD Security Monitor at Mansfeld Middle School and there he would hug their daughter in ways that became more and more inappropriate until he finally touched the inside of her thigh.

They went to police. They found police knew John Corral had a history and TUSD knew it too.

The girl’s mother says, "They knew who he was and what he had done. And all they allowed him to do was to pick the school that he wanted to transfer to, or they would move, other students."

The lawsuit says Corral was a security monitor at two other schools before Mansfeld.

A Tucson Police report says he was at Pueblo High in 2002 when a student said he asked her to go to where "She could give him [explicit]."

A Pima Sheriff's report says at the now closed Hohokam Middle School a 14-year-old girl said, "He whispered to her very softly, "F*** me."

The lawsuit includes TUSD memos that discipline Corral in those cases. Some discuss moving him to other jobs where he would not be near children.

But he landed at Mansfeld Middle School, monitoring children, until 2017, when D.G. and Y.G's daughter spoke up.

TUSD is not commenting. All but the latest case pre-date TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo. He told attorneys, "I can only speak to the current administration. The information I have received we would not have gotten to three incidents."

But the young girl's parents say TUSD worried more about its image than its students and they want to make sure that will never happen again.

The family's attorney, Leighton Rockafellow Junior, says the law requires the family and TUSD to try to mediate a settlement. But if that fails he's planning a jury trial.