Brief: 'chain of evidence' impossible in life skills scandal

 

NEBRASKA CITY – An attorney for a scandalized Nebraska City teacher says an audio recording taken by a disabled life skills student was illegally made and can not meet the burden of ‘chain of evidence’ at trial because police left it in the possession of the student’s mother.

Nebraska law requires at least one person to consent to an audio recording, but in his brief attorney William Bianco said the student could not consent because of his disability. A police affidavit says the mother put the recorder device in his pocket, but Otoe County Attorney Jennifer Panko-Rahe said the mother testified at a court hearing that at times the student put the recorder in his own pocket.

Bianco said that after the mother told police about the recording, they left it in her possession for a year.

Bianco: “At the trial, the prosecution must provide the court with the original recordings with a clear chain of evidence. This is now impossible.”

The defense brief says the teacher has the right to confront her accuser saying the accuser is the student, not a recording.

The brief also says police interviewed seven witnesses at the school, all with first-hand knowledge of the teacher’s interactions with the student and the classroom atmosphere.

Bianco: “Not one witness stated Ms. Valenta abused (the student) or created an environment in which (the student) or any other student could be abused.”

The Otoe County Attorney’s Office earlier dropped criminal charges against two  para-educators and reduced charges against Melissa Valenta to misdemeanor child abuse by neglect on Sept. 13.

https://rivercountry.newschannelnebraska.com/story/48116479/superintendent-sends-schoolwide-message-regarding-life-skills-scandal