TAMPA, Fla. — A former Tampa Bay area school administrator has been convicted in a Rhode Island case that drew widespread attention.
CBS affiliate WPRI reports 41-year-old Olayinka Alege, who was previously the subject of a 10 Tampa Bay investigation, was found guilty Friday of misdemeanor simple assault after prosecutors successfully convinced a jury that he rubbed a teen boy's foot inside a gym and against the child's will.
Alege did not take the stand.
During testimony, the teen reportedly said Alege removed his sneaker and sock, forcibly massaged his bare foot, then winked at him. A Warwick Police Department interview with Alege was shown at the trial, WPRI said, and it showed Alege deny having a foot fetish.
Last year, two young men from the same gym told investigators Alege did the same thing to them. He was arrested in May.
Alege pleaded not guilty at the time – but he resigned from Providence Public Schools where he was a network superintendent.
As WPRI points out, the Providence superintendent – also with Florida ties – who hired Alege was later fired after school leaders found out he knew of previous similar accusations against Alege in the Tampa Bay region but did not tell the hiring committee.
So what were the previous accusations in Hillsborough County, Florida?
10 Investigates reporter Jenna Bourne revealed Alege's Florida history in an episode of our YouTube series, What's Brewing?
As we showed in that investigation, Hillsborough County Public Schools knew students had accused Alege, then an assistant principal, of touching their bare feet in 2009. The school district promoted Olayinka Alege up the educational ladder for the next decade, anyway.
10 Investigates found records showing that at least eight boys and young men had accused Olayinka Alege of unwanted foot touching over the past 12 years.
In 2009, a child protective investigator talked to five students at C. Leon King High School in Tampa, who all shared a similar story: Their assistant principal would pop their toes as punishment for bad grades when no one else was around.
According to Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office records, one boy said “he’s had his toes popped by Mr. Alege approximately 20 times” and “it happens often so he just gives Mr. Alege his foot.”
And another boy said, “Mr. Alege told him that he could not hit him so the toe popping was a form of punishment. [The student] said Mr. Alege did not hurt him but he thought it was a weird type of punishment.”
That investigation didn’t lead to criminal charges.
According to the sheriff’s office’s report, an assistant state attorney “… felt as though the facts of this case does not meet the criteria for a battery charge and that this would be better handled through the school board.”
When 10 Investigates asked the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office for records on that last year, Chief Communications Officer Grayson Kamm emailed us, “These allegations against this school administrator are disturbing. The State Attorney and Assistant State Attorney who were involved in the decision are no longer with our office, and there are no records from 12 years ago indicating why this decision was made or what follow-up took place.”
Child abuse pediatrician Dr. Randy Alexander, who spoke to 10 Investigates as an expert for our 2021 story, explained that even though an act like toe-popping may be concerning enough to spark an investigation, it may not fit into the parameters of a criminal charge.
“The legal system is going to say, does this fit our categories of things that we have? And so, they have to have a pigeonhole to put everything into. And that’s fine for a lot of things. But there are some things that don’t fit into those pigeonholes as well,” Alexander said at the time.
OK, so that assistant state attorney reportedly decided the foot touching didn’t fit into the battery pigeonhole and the school district should handle this instead.
What did Hillsborough County Public Schools do? The district dropped it.
HCPS’ Office of Professional Standards took “no action” and told “The principal and Area Director to handle though the evaluation process.”
The principal of King High School at the time, Carla Bruning, documented her conversation with Alege in a letter, saying “I immediately asked you to stop this process. You agreed to cease immediately and never to do this again… you stated to me that you had no malice intent. Mr. Alege, I do believe that you had no intent to harm anyone.”
Alege’s evaluation for that school year is missing from his personnel record, which 10 Investigates got through a public records request.
The school district had no explanation when we asked why.
“I am unaware why there is no evaluation in his record. The people listed in these documents are no longer with the district, so there would be no way for me to inquire,” wrote HCPS spokesperson Erin Maloney in an email last year.
Alege’s evaluation for the next school year, done by Bruning – the same principal who told him to cut it out with the toe-pulling – mentioned nothing about it and gave him a near-perfect score.
Assistant Principal Olayinka Alege continued to be promoted up through the ranks at Hillsborough County Public Schools, becoming principal at Greco Middle School in 2012.
Two years later, in 2014, Alege was under investigation again – this time for an accusation he “had a student stay after school for punishment, and the[n] massaged the student’s shoulders.”
The child protective investigator found “No Indicators to support the allegations of abuse or neglect,” according to HCPS Office of Professional Standards records.
In 2016 and 2017, HCPS promoted Alege twice to district-level leadership positions.
That’s where he worked with another district leader, Harrison Peters.
“During this time, his work ethic and success in transforming struggling schools impressed leadership throughout the district. I thought I knew him,” said Peters during a virtual Rhode Island State Senate committee hearing on May 17.
Peters got hired as superintendent of Providence Public Schools in Rhode Island in 2020.
That summer, Peters hired his former HCPS colleague Alege as “network superintendent” in Providence. Now, both are out of their jobs in Providence.
After Alege’s arrest in Rhode Island last year, 10 Investigates sent Hillsborough County Public Schools a public records request for messages mentioning his name.
The results revealed an email from one teacher to another, sharing a link to 10 Tampa Bay’s story on his arrest and saying, “[K]New this would eventually rear its ugly head again one day. The District covered it up for years and kept promoting this guy. People tell me it continued even when he left King.”
At the time, HCPS spokesperson Erin Maloney told 10 Investigates the district talked to that teacher and “he has confirmed that he has no direct knowledge of any additional incidents. He says it was merely speculation, rumor, and gossip.”
What did Providence Public Schools previously know about the 2009 toe-popping accusations?
Peters said he wasn’t ready to talk when 10 Investigates called him in August 2021, three months after reaching an agreement to terminate his contract as Providence Public Schools superintendent. But he had plenty to say during the virtual Rhode Island State Senate Rules, Government Ethics and Oversight Committee hearing on May 17.
Peters said he found news articles on the 2009 accusations during a Google search before hiring Alege for the Providence network superintendent position.
“This was the first time I was made aware of this incident. It had never been brought to my attention during the entire time we were colleagues in Hillsborough County. When Dr. Alege told me that he had meant no harm and that, in hindsight, he understood that his behavior was inappropriate and would never be repeated, I made a decision to believe him,” said Peters.
Peters said he never told the hiring committee about the 2009 accusations.
“It very much concerns me that – when we identify grooming behaviors – that, either it doesn’t get up and down communicated through the committee, etc.,” said State Sen. Meghan Kallman, who represents North Providence and Pawtucket, previously.
So, did Hillsborough County Public Schools tell Providence Public Schools about Alege’s toe-popping past during the 2020 hiring process?
Neither district has answered our questions about that when we did our 2021 investigation. Hillsborough County Public Schools would not do an interview at the time, saying the decision-makers from 2009 don’t work there anymore.
Providence Public Schools would not do an interview then, either, or give us a single page from Alege’s personnel file. The only record on Alege we did get the district to hand over was his employee ID photo.
To try to get Alege’s side of the story last year, 10 Investigates emailed him, called the phone number in his court documents and Hillsborough personnel record, and called his attorney, J. Dixon-Acosta.
We did not get a response.
The Rhode Island judge handling Alege’s criminal case gave him permission to travel out of state last year, so we went to his house in Riverview. At the time of our investigation, the man who answered the door told us Alege was not there.
Friday's conviction in the Rhode Island case comes with a one-year filing that says if he doesn't commit another crime within the next year, the charge with be expunged, according to WPRI.
The court also ordered Alege not to contact the victim or his family. His defense lawyer told WRPI Alege has the right to appeal and will weigh his options.