Trial Begins for Former Teacher Accused of Improperly Touching Young Female Students
By Regina Dennis
The opening day of the trial of a former Waco Baptist Academy teacher accused of indecency with a child included testimony from a third woman alleging abuse by Sergio David Bezerra when she was young. The victim, who is now 27, testified that Bezerra repeatedly molested her at his Hewitt home when she was a teenager. The woman had a close relationship to Bezerra but was not one of his students. “I feel that by keeping quiet, then in a way I’m contributing to allowing someone to hurt children,” said the victim, now an elementary school teacher. Bezerra, 54, is on trial for four counts of indecency with a child for allegedly improperly touching two 9-year-old girls at the school. Bezerra’s defense attorneys, Rob Swanton and Phil Fredericks, originally objected to allowing the woman to testify. Bezerra has not been charged in any incidents involving the 27-year-old victim, and the woman testified that she only first told of her abuse in 2010, after Bezerra had already been arrested on the indecency with a child charges. Prosecutor Hilary LaBorde argued that the victim’s testimony could illustrate Bezerra’s intentions, context that she believes the younger victims could not provide since they were just 9 years old when they reported the inappropriate contact by Bezerra. “It goes to his state of mind, his purpose of (touching them) the way he did, and also shows the jury what the defendant is capable of if he has more access,” LaBorde said. Judge Matt Johnson of the 54th State District Court instructed the jury that they may only consider the woman’s testimony if they believed beyond a reasonable doubt that Bezerra had committed a crime against her. He said if that criteria is met, the victim’s testimony could only be weighed in considering Bezerra’s character and intent in the indecency with a child charges. Woman’s testimony The woman told the jury the abuse began when she was 14 years old and continued through her freshman and sophomore years of high school. She described Bezerra reaching under her pants and touching her through her underwear. She testified about another incident when she was 16 in which she said Bezerra forced her to touch his genitals while in a bathroom at his home while he also touched himself. But under questioning from Swanton, the woman said she initially denied the abuse to a law enforcement officer and a staff member from Child Protective Services when Bezerra was being investigated for incidents involving the 9-year-old victims. “I’ve always been afraid of what people are going to think of me, even to this day. It’s something I’m very ashamed of,” the victim testified. “If I said the truth, I was afraid everybody was going to turn against me, as it happened when I told everybody what happened.” Bezerra was arrested in 2007 on the indecency with a child charges after the two girls, who were fourth-grade students at Waco Baptist Academy at the time, reported the alleged abuse. He taught Spanish and Latin at the school for 13 years and resigned a few months before he was arrested. According to prosecutors, Bezerra would have the two victims sit near his desk during Spanish class and rub their legs and thighs, using the desk as a shield from the other students. Piano lessons Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Massey told the jury Bezerra also had the victims alone together for piano lessons in a separate trailer at the school. She said Bezerra had each girl straddle him while at the piano as the other would be in the room doing homework. The alleged victims, who are now high school students, are expected to testify Wednesday. “The girls will tell you that when it was their turn to be at the piano, their hearts sank,” Massey said. “He wasn’t making them sit on his lap like Santa Claus. This defendant would take these 9-year-old little girls and have them straddle his adult body, and hold them so close and press their bodies against him and rub them against his body.” Waco police Sgt. Scott Holt, who was assigned Bezerra’s case as a detective in the Crimes Against Children unit, testified Tuesday that the girls couldn’t fully describe how Bezerra had touched them because of their limited knowledge of language as 9-year-old children. But both demonstrated his movements in videotaped interviews at the Child Advocacy Center. For example, Holt said one victim motioned from her stomach downward to show where Bezerra touched her, while the other demonstrated that he would rub from her knee to her upper thigh, pushing her shorts up. Still images from the video interviews were shown to the jury. Swanton noted in his questioning of Holt that neither of the victims said Bezerra had touched their genitals, and both denied seeing or touching his genitals. Swanton also disputed Holt’s interpretation that one of the victims’ report of touching “a bumpy part” of Bezerra’s groin area through his clothes was describing the defendant’s genitals. He suggested that it could have been an item in Bezerra’s pocket. “She’s doing her best at 9 years old to give an accurate representation of what was happening to her,” Holt said. Contact: rdennis@wacotrib.com
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.