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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Horrific Complaints Against|Schoolteacher and School Board

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CN) - An elementary schoolteacher sexually abused students for years, made them watch pornography and bestiality on school computers, and made them drink his semen, which he called "pirate juice," two families claim in court.

In separate federal complaints, the students and their guardians ad litem claim the teacher, Michael Andrew Alexander, threatened to kill students and their families if they told anyone about the abuse.

The students, N.C. and L.B., sued Alexander and the Burke County Public Schools Board of Education. Former elementary school principal Wendi Barber is also named as a defendant in N.C.'s complaint, and guidance counselor Linda Bradshaw is named as a defendant in L.B.'s complaint.

Alexander is serving a 49½-year sentence in state prison. Sheriff's officers arrested him in June 2012, based on FBI reports that linked him to a child pornography ring in Europe, according to the federal complaints.

"Throughout his 12 years as a BCPS teacher, defendant Alexander was allowed to excuse young girls from other class and school activities and keep them with him long enough to engage in sex with them, and, among other atrocities, create and distribute child abuse images," one complaint states. "L.B. was made to drink concoctions containing his [Alexander's] semen, which he called 'pirate juice.' Upon information and belief, defendant Alexander used school computers to upload, download, copy and distribute sexually deviant images of the children to a worldwide audience of sexual degenerates and child-pornography enterprises."

The other child, N.C., states in his complaint: "In June 2012, the European Police ('Europol') intercepted a child pornography syndicate operating in Spain and discovered child abuse videos and images taken of children in Burke County Public Schools ('BCPS') that had been distributed worldwide. The children were filmed inside elementary school classrooms, causing Europol agents to immediately contact the U.S. Embassy and the FBI. State and federal agents moved swiftly to arrest a third-grade teacher at BCPS's Hildebran Elementary School ('Hildebran'), defendant Michael Andrew Alexander. Defendant Alexander has since been sentenced to almost one-half century of incarceration for horrific misconduct.

"Throughout his 12 years as a BCPS teacher, defendant Alexander used his position as a public school teacher and his access to public school students to abuse students by making them look at disturbing pornographic images on computers at school, including forcing them to view images of women and animals engaged in explicit sex acts.

"Also throughout his tenure with BCPS, defendant Alexander was allowed to excuse young students from other class and school activities and keep them with him long enough to engage in sex with them, and, among other atrocities, create and distribute child abuse images. Some of his students were made to drink concoctions containing his semen, which he called 'pirate juice.' Upon information and belief, defendant Alexander used school computers to upload, download, copy and distribute sexually deviant images of the children to a worldwide audience of sexual degenerates and child-pornography enterprises.

"N.C. was a student in defendant Alexander's class when defendant Alexander isolated N.C. from the rest of the students and forced him to view, alone with defendant Alexander and on school computers, images of women and animals engaged in explicit sex acts. N.C. was so disturbed by the images defendant Alexander showed him that he went home from school crying and told his father, M.C., that defendant Alexander had shown him the images."

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N.C.'s father complained to principal Wendi Barber, who told him "there was nothing that could be done about it and otherwise ignored the incident, choosing to keep N.C. in Defendant Alexander's class for the remainder of the school year," according to the complaint.

Barber's "deliberate indifference" included not reporting Alexander to police, in addition to letting him stay in the classroom for the rest of the 2008-2009 school year, according to N.C.'s complaint.

"Denied help, N.C. remained in defendant Alexander's classroom where he had to relive and be reminded of the disturbing things he had seen, and in constant fear of defendant Alexander and when he might be compelled to view or participate in such deviant conduct again," the complaint states.

N.C., now a middle-school student, claims Alexander abused many other students.

"N.C. is not the only BCPS student abused by defendant Alexander during school hours and on school grounds," the complaint states. "Upon information and belief, defendant Alexander's heinous misconduct with BCPS students dates back to at least 2001 and includes as many as 50 victims. Upon information and belief, that misconduct includes, among other things:

"a. forcing vile sex acts on children as young as 7 years old, which he may have filmed and distributed via the Internet to sexual deviants around the world;

"b. forcing young girls to engage in sex acts with each other, which he may have filmed and distributed via the Internet to sexual deviants around the world;

"c. downloading, uploading, and distributing films and photographic images via the Internet of girls as young as 4 years old being raped by men;

"d. forcing young girls to drink his semen, in treats and concoctions he called 'truth serum' or 'pirate juice,' which he may have filmed and distributed via Internet to sexual deviants around the world;

"e. ejaculating into boots, and then filming girls walking around in them as he told them they had 'seamen legs,' and uploading and distributing those images to pleasure other sexual deviants around the world;

"f. instructing young girls to wear dresses and high-heeled boots to school so he could make suggestive and sexually deviant movies and photographs of them, which he distributed via the Internet to sexual deviants around the world; and

"g. threatening his young victims that if they told their families or anyone else about the movies he made or the things he did to them that he would come to their house and kill them and their families.

"Upon information and belief, defendant Alexander's history of sexual abuse and exploitation of elementary children predates his work for BCPS, also occurring while he was a teacher in neighboring McDowell County, where he worked before being hired by defendant school board in 2001."

In her similar complaint, L.B. claims Alexander, her third-grade teacher, sexually abused her during the 2011-2012 school year.

"L.B. was 8 years old when defendant Alexander began sexually abusing and filming her in school," the complaint states. "L.B. made several complaints to Hildebran's guidance counselor, defendant Linda Bradshaw, that she was being teased and bullied by other girls in class for being singled out as defendant Alexander's 'favorite.' At or around the same time that L.B. went to defendant Bradshaw with her complaints of being bullied, another of defendant Alexander's victims, L.B.'s classmate, complained to defendant Bradshaw that she was being inappropriately touched by defendant Alexander."

Though Bradshaw and Barber were both aware of the complaints, L.B. says, they did nothing to investigate or report the complaints, and sent the complaining students back to Alexander's class.

"During the 2011-12 academic year, defendant Alexander was L.B.'s third-grade teacher at Hildebran," the complaint states. "Defendant Alexander, under color of law, used his authority position to repeatedly separate and confine L.B. during school hours to sexually abuse, videotape, and otherwise criminally mistreat her. Upon information and belief, such misconduct included:

"a. ejaculating into L.B.'s boots, filming her walking around in them as she had, in his words, 'seamen legs,' and uploading and distributing those images to pleasure other sexual deviants around the world;

"b. mixing his semen with grape juice, filming L.B. drinking the concoction in a game he called 'pirates,' and uploading and distributing those images via the Internet to pleasure other sexual deviants around the world;

"c. instructing L.B. to wear dresses and high-heeled boots to school so he could make suggestive and sexually deviant movies and photographs of her, which he distributed via the Internet to sexual deviants around the world; and

"d. forcing vile sex acts upon L.B., which he filmed and distributed via the Internet to sexual deviants around the world."

The students claim Alexander's abuse caused them severe psychological and emotional damage.

They say the school board and its co-defendants failed to investigate, report or follow up on their complaints, and did not offer them any counseling or assistance.

The students seek damages for pain and suffering and violations of the U.S. and North Carolina Constitutions and North Carolina laws, and medical bills.

Both are represented by Robert Tatum with Tatum & Atkinson, of Raleigh.

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