An Anaheim teacher’s aide has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting three boys at an Orange County charter school, according to court records.

Justin Dean Evans, 30, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of forcible lewd acts on a child. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Evans worked at Goals Academy, located at 4012 W. Carl Karcher Way in Anaheim, when he molested the three boys in 2018 and 2019. According to police testimony, Evans molested the boys by grabbing their crotches while playing soccer with them during recess. One victim reported he was in fifth grade at the time, approximately 10 years old. Another boy said he was molested three times when he was also 10 years old.

In a separate incident, police testified that Evans accompanied one victim’s family to church in Fullerton. After the service, Evans told the boy to come with him to his car to retrieve a gift. The boy reported he was sexually assaulted in the backseat of Evans’ car. The same victim also recalled another occasion when Evans gave him coffee that appeared to be drugged, according to police testimony.

Supervision Failures in School Settings

Cases involving abuse by school staff members raise serious questions about institutional oversight, supervision protocols, and the safeguards meant to protect children during school hours and school-sponsored activities. When abuse occurs on school grounds during recess or other routine activities, it suggests potential gaps in supervision, monitoring, and enforcement of child protection policies.

In civil law, potential claims arising from such circumstances may extend beyond the individual perpetrator to include the school or district where the abuse occurred. Charter schools, like traditional public and private schools, have a legal duty to provide reasonably safe environments for students and to implement adequate measures to prevent foreseeable harm. This duty encompasses several critical areas of institutional responsibility.

Negligent hiring claims may arise when a school fails to conduct thorough background checks on employees and volunteers who work with children or when warning signs in an applicant’s history are overlooked or ignored. Negligent supervision claims focus on whether the school maintained adequate oversight of staff members during interactions with students, particularly in settings like recess, after-school programs, or one-on-one situations that could create opportunities for abuse. Negligent retention addresses whether a school took appropriate action when concerning behavior was reported or observed, or whether complaints and red flags were dismissed or inadequately investigated.

California law requires schools to maintain specific policies and procedures designed to protect students from abuse. These include mandatory reporting requirements for educators and staff who suspect abuse, comprehensive background screening for all employees who have contact with children, clear protocols governing appropriate boundaries between adults and students, and training for staff on recognizing and reporting signs of abuse or inappropriate behavior.

When schools fail to implement these safeguards or enforce them consistently, they may face civil liability for harm that results. The fact that abuse occurred during school hours, on school property, and involved a school employee raises questions about whether adequate supervision and monitoring were in place to protect students during routine activities like recess.

Recognizing Warning Signs and Institutional Red Flags

Parents and families who entrust their children to schools deserve confidence that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent abuse. Warning signs that may warrant closer attention include school staff who seek opportunities for isolated, one-on-one contact with specific students, adults who engage students in activities outside of school without clear institutional oversight or parental knowledge, boundary violations such as inappropriate physical contact or personal communications, and schools that lack clear policies around adult-student interactions or fail to respond seriously to parent concerns.

The allegations in this case involved not only abuse during school recess but also inappropriate contact that extended beyond school grounds, including accompanying a student’s family to church and providing drinks to a minor. Such boundary violations underscore the importance of clear institutional policies that define appropriate staff-student relationships and limit contact outside of supervised school settings.

Extended Timelines for Childhood Sexual Abuse Claims

California’s Child Victims Act recognizes that many survivors of childhood sexual abuse require years before they feel ready to come forward or fully understand the harm they experienced. This law provides extended timeframes for filing civil claims, allowing survivors to seek accountability and justice even decades after abuse occurred. Civil claims may proceed independently of criminal cases and can provide a pathway for survivors to hold both individual perpetrators and negligent institutions accountable.

For survivors who were abused in school settings, civil claims can serve multiple purposes beyond financial compensation. They can uncover institutional failures and systemic problems that allowed abuse to occur, create public accountability that may prevent future harm to other children, validate survivors’ experiences and demonstrate that they were not at fault, and provide resources for ongoing therapy and support services that many survivors need.

Easton & Easton’s Support for Survivors of School-Based Abuse

At Easton & Easton, we are deeply committed to supporting survivors of childhood sexual abuse, particularly in cases involving schools, charter schools, and other educational institutions where children are placed in the care of trusted adults. We understand that survivors abused by teachers, aides, or other school staff often face profound feelings of betrayal and complex emotional challenges, especially when the abuse occurred in an environment meant to provide safety, learning, and growth.

Our approach emphasizes compassionate, trauma-informed advocacy combined with thorough investigation of institutional practices and failures. We recognize that legal accountability represents only one aspect of a survivor’s healing journey, and we work to connect clients with therapeutic professionals, victim-support services, and community resources that provide ongoing support throughout and beyond the legal process.

Attorney Saul Wolf has extensive experience handling civil claims related to institutional abuse across a wide range of settings, including church entities such as the Roman Catholic Church, private schools and public school districts including Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), youth-serving organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs and YMCAs, and youth sports organizations and national governing bodies including USA Water Polo and USA Cheer.

Easton & Easton remains dedicated to helping survivors seek accountability, clarity, and justice while advocating for stronger protections and institutional responsibility within schools and educational institutions that serve children throughout Orange County, Los Angeles County, and across California.

If you or someone you know has been affected by abuse in a school setting, we invite you to contact Easton & Easton for a confidential consultation. Our team is here to listen, answer your questions, and help you understand your legal options.