Deaf mother 'betrayed' by caregiver
adn.com | alaska : Deaf mother 'betrayed' by caregiver
Randall Danes, a baby sitter and a leader in Anchorage's deaf community, was charged Thursday with sexually abusing a boy in his care.
Danes, 39, appeared before a judge at Anchorage Jail Court, where a sign-language interpreter told him he was charged with sexual abuse of a minor in the first and second degrees, and one count of attempted sexual abuse. His bail was set at $100,000 cash.
Danes, who receives disability payments, also earned an income providing child care at his home for members of the deaf community, police said. He's listed in public records as the president of Williwaw Recreational Club for the Deaf. He has also held other leadership positions in the deaf community.
He had provided care for as many as 15 children, including a 10-year-old boy police say he molested over a period of several years. He was not a licensed child care provider.
The boy, who was developmentally delayed, had been under Danes' care since he was 6 or 7. He reported the abuse to his parents in early January, according to a complaint filed by police. The boy is not deaf, but his mother and stepfather are. He communicates both by speaking and with sign language.
The boy told police that Danes asked him to perform oral sex in the summer of 2006 and again at the end of December, the court documents say. The boy also told police that Danes talked to him about sex.
At the end of January, the boy's mother called Danes and confronted him about the abuse on a TDD machine, used by the hearing impaired to communicate over the telephone. Police monitored a transcript of the conversation.
Danes told the mother he talked to the boy about sex and became aroused while the boy was sitting on his lap, the documents say. He then admitted that he had sexual contact with the boy in the bathroom when Danes was getting out of the shower.
Danes told the boy's mother that it only happened one time and that no other children had been involved, according to the documents.
Detective Gerard Asselin, with the Anchorage Police Department's unit investigating crimes against children, said there is concern that other children may have been victimized. He asked that concerned parents talk to police.
Danes was accused of indecent exposure in 1989 for flashing two boys in Spenard. He was not convicted.
The deaf community in Anchorage is small, and the victim's mother became acquainted with Danes because she was looking for child care, police said.
In an interview conducted through an interpreter Thursday afternoon, she said she had considered him a good friend.
She first became concerned that something was wrong when her son used the term "having sex," she said.
"We said, 'where did you learn that?' " she said. "He didn't get that from us."
After that, the boy described what his baby sitter had done, his mother said.
The mother's fiance said that he sometimes felt uncomfortable when he dropped the child off at Danes' home. Occasionally, he would find Danes in a bathrobe and the boys in his care without shirts on, he said.
"I feel totally betrayed; I trusted him," the boy's mother said, signing emphatically. "I'm sure there's others. (We need to) stop him, stop him from doing this over and over again."
