Salt Lake school employee charged with sexual assault of boy
A Salt Lake Elementary School employee has been charged with sexual assault.
Greg Hirashiki, an educational assistant at the school, was charged last week with three counts of third-degree sexual assault and released after posting $100,000 bail. He has a court appearance scheduled for Wednesday.
According to the criminal complaint, Hirashiki fondled a boy under 14 on three separate occasions, in January and March, and on Sept. 13.
Donalyn Dela Cruz, Department of Education spokeswoman, said today Hirashiki has been on leave since Sept. 19, pending an investigation. She said the department had no further comment because there were ongoing school and police investigations. The school will inform parents when information becomes available, she said.
Last month, Michael Wright, 33, a Jefferson Elementary School teacher, pleaded not guilty to five sexual assault charges involving a minor victim, including two first-degree sexual assaults.
The alleged crimes happened from July 2010 to July 2015. Wright was freed after posting $200,000 bail, and his trial was set for Nov. 21.
18 responses to “Salt Lake school employee charged with sexual assault of boy”
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Fondling little boys eh?
Accused certainly has problems more dreadful awaiting him?
What were they thinking!
HSTA will hire anyone today, the shortage to fill positions is a priority, safety of children is secondary.
HSTA has nothing to do with this. The DOE hires employees.
HSTA will bat for this guy if this guy is union-due paying guy. That is why unions don’t belong in government. Let the school administrators and those in the community who have stake with that school involved do the hiring and firing of wrong doers.
(Educational Assistants are not members of HSTA)
To clarify, EAs are represented by HGEA. They are qualified to appear on a list of applicants by HIDOE HR. The list is then sent to schools who have positions open They go through an interview process similar to that of teachers or other classified employees and may be hired by school administrators. The administrator then sends the results of the interview and recommendation for hiring back through the chain and HR processes the necessary information.
The DOE PERSONNELOFFICE has a lot to be desired of….It seems that a lot of people hired are not screened throughly with background checks. I personally have heard of a number of people hired with mental illness as well as past criminal history. I guess when you pay so poorly, you get the bottom of the barrel.
(All employees hired by the HIDOE undergo a criminal history background check and fingerprinting. In these checks, successful completion of a DAG plea for example will not show up and things like misdemeanors may not necessarily be disqualifying even if they are not desirable. Information about mental disorders under medical treatment is protected by Federal privacy laws and the information is extremely difficult to access, even with waiver/permission. Many people who are accused of crimes such as this one, both in schools and organizations and in the community at large, have no prior recorded history of such behavior.)
NEPOTISM–DOE is well-known for this. Anytime you see a lazy/bad/thieving employee, guaranteed there’s an auntie/uncle/cousin etc who’s looking the other way, who got them the job.
The EA is HGEA and the teacher is HSTA.
Oh Lawd, I for one am awful glad Vaseline doesn’t come in a bottle. Glurg, glurg, glurg, glurg, glurg. The mind reels. Where’s the brain bleach?!
No way they did a background check on this guy.
TOTALLY AGREE, Commando1. I’m a DOE teacher and what’s important here is that this guy got CAUGHT–imagine how often this goes on behind closed doors.
I can’t believe this is happening. Lock these men up with a bigggggggggggggggggg bottle of vaseline and let the prisoners go wild. The Salt Lake guy was released. What a big joke. I hope he is fired and not on leave with pay until further investigation.
(Since I’m kind of engaged in a mission of clarifying procedure even when emotionally, I would like to see action…) Terminating an employee before completing an investigation is a Constitutional problem analogous to holding a suspect beyond 48 hours without charges. The Constitution (which in fact, is a really wise document) does not allow for the denial of rights without both substantive and procedural Due Process. Sometimes, in order to protect the rights of those we love, we need to be prepared to also protect the rights of those we may abhor. The concept of Due Process has often served us well.
(I don’t want to get involved with the whole Duterte thing but people who know me know that I’m about as anti-drug as one can be from both personal and professional experience. I am not however prepared to ignore America’s constitutional protections to Due Process. If our legal system is not doing an appropriate and effective job, let’s reform our system of laws rather than ignoring it completely. To do so is to embark on a trail of tyranny.)
Looks like we already found the teacher guilty.