TAMPA, Fla. — Another person has reported to police that former Tampa school administrator Olayinka Alege gave them an unwanted foot rub at a Rhode Island gym.
A Warwick Police report said they described Alege’s behavior as “weird and creepy.”
Alege recently resigned from his position as a high-ranking school official at the Providence Public School District, Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green and Providence Superintendent Harrison Peters told 10 Tampa Bay in a joint statement.
Last week, 10 Tampa Bay reported Alege was charged with Simple Assault or Battery after a minor reported Alege removed his shoe and sock, then rubbed his foot for 30-45 seconds at Edge Fitness Club in Warwick.
Warwick Police say the encounter was caught on surveillance video.
The minor also told police Alege “smiled and winked” at them while they were working out on a machine.
A Warwick Police report said Alege told officers during questioning that he was interested in the minor’s shoes.
“Once questioning turned to the actual incident suspect Alege’s responses to my questions became very deliberate and slow and he continuously looked at the ceiling and around the room as he attempted to answer… Alege denied rubbing the victim’s barefoot but did acknowledge touching it,” an officer wrote in the report.
Days after Alege’s arrest, new documents 10 Investigates got from Warwick Police on Wednesday, through a public records request, reveal a second person came forward to report Alege also gave them an unwanted foot rub at the same gym in February.
The report does not identify the second person as a minor.
They reportedly told police Alege asked them about their shoes, took their sock off and rubbed their heel.
The Warwick Police report says the person who reported the February unwanted foot rub did not want to press charges against Alege at this time, but wanted the encounter documented after they “saw the story on the news about Alege [allegedly] doing the same thing to a minor.”
Alege previously worked for Hillsborough County Public Schools, where some students reportedly complained about his “unusual” punishments.
“Five boys told deputies that King High assistant principal Olayinka Alege asked them on numerous occasions to take off a shoe and sock behind closed doors, and allow him to ‘pop’ their toes,” the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported in 2009. “They said it didn’t hurt, but they didn’t like it, either.”
One student told the newspaper it happened so often he would frequently just offer up his foot when he entered the office at school.
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