Hawaiʻi Mom Sues Boys & Girls Club For Not Protecting Child From Abuse
Staffers didn’t intervene or contact authorities after a 10-year-old boy complained he was sexually assaulted by another student in the program, the lawsuit says.
Staff members of a Boys & Girls Club after-school program in Honolulu did nothing to address reports that one student was bullying and sexually assaulting another young boy for nearly four months, according to a lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother.
The boy complained to staff about the incidents, which occurred between November 2023 and March 2024, as did his sister and parents, but no one intervened, the suit alleges.
The staff members not only failed to protect the boy, who was 10 at the time, from danger, but the complaint says they did not comply with state law that mandates adults who supervise children to report allegations of sexual abuse to authorities.
The boy’s family “trusted that the program would take their children after school and keep them safe,” said Victoria Chang, an attorney representing the child’s mother, “and not expose them to certain offenses and crimes like sexual assault.”
In an emailed statement, Walter Guild, board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii, wrote that the organization believes the allegations contained in the complaint lack merit.
“However, we remain deeply concerned by this very serious matter and will offer our full cooperation to those involved in the legal process, while remaining confident we will prevail in court,” he said.
For Chang, the incidents are indicative of a concerning pattern at the organization, which has been the subject of previous abuse allegations. A former director of the Boys & Girls Club Maui was sentenced to one year in prison in 2020 for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, and a former Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii volunteer was sentenced to 15 years in 2017 for sexually assaulting two young girls on Kauaʻi.
The Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii runs programs at 10 clubhouses and centers on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi, according to its website. A Boys & Girls Club of Maui also runs its own after-school programming.
The lawsuit comes as Hawaiʻi schools report an uptick in incidents of severe bullying and fights from students since the Covid-19 pandemic, with some educators attributing the uptick in misbehavior to the limited social interactions kids had during online learning.
Complaints To Staff But ‘Nothing Changed’
The 10-year-old boy, a student at Lunalilo Elementary who is not named in the complaint, was enrolled in the Boys & Girls Club with his 9-year-old sister in November 2023.
The children attended the program at the organization’s Spalding Clubhouse on Waiola Street in Honolulu.
The alleged perpetrator, who was also a Lunalilo Elementary student, started bullying the 10-year-old boy as soon as he entered the program, the complaint says.
The student called the 10-year-old boy racial slurs, attacked him, stole from him and made obscene gestures at him, according to the lawsuit. He also touched the boy’s buttocks and pushed a stick against his anus on multiple occasions.
The 10-year-old told at least three staff members about the abuse, but “nothing changed, and he was still placed in the same activities” as the alleged bully. His sister, who witnessed some of the incidents, also spoke to staff members about what was happening to her brother, “but again, nothing was ever done.”
After the child told his mother about the abuse, she spoke to one of the staff members, also with no results. In late November or early December 2023, the mother spoke to the school principal, who the lawsuit maintains said he knew about the alleged bully’s behavior and had notified a Boys & Girls Club employee about the problem.
By January 2024, the incidents had escalated and the alleged bully was touching the 10-year-old boy’s penis without consent, but again the complaint said staff did nothing to intervene.
Then, on March 1, 2024, the accused slammed the 10-year-old boy against a wall and touched his penis. At that point, a staff member did call the 10-year-old’s mother to tell her about the incident. Later that day, the mother reported the sexual assault to the police.
Chang said she could not comment on the status of the police case.
The lawsuit accuses the Boys & Girls Club of not adequately supervising its students and “not conforming to and complying with mandated reporter requirements pertaining to sexual harassment and sexual assault.”
Mandatory Reporting
The state’s mandatory reporting law covers providers of child care and employees of agencies that provide recreational or sports activities. It requires those responsible for supervising children to report to authorities any time they suspect a child has been sexually abused, even if by another child.
“It’s still sexual abuse,” Chang said. “Any sexual abuse should not be allowed to happen, and so it should have been reported up the chain.”
Loretta Sheehan, an attorney with the Honolulu-based firm Davis Levin Livingston, said mandated reporters are required to report their suspicions of child abuse to the Department of Human Services or their local police department. Sheehan is not involved in this case.
It doesn’t matter the age of the person suspected of perpetrating the abuse, she said. What matters is that the adults supervising the after-school program have a legal responsibility to protect the children in their care.
“If an agency takes custody of a child, they take responsibility for a child,” she said, “and state law requires them to protect that child as a mom and dad would.”
Schools are required to investigate reports of sexual harassment and severe bullying and involve the police when school staff can’t handle the danger posed by a student. Consequences can include suspension or dismissal, according to the state Department of Education.
“It should have been reported up the chain.”
Victoria Chang
The DOE requires all of its employees, including teachers and volunteers, to be trained annually on their responsibilities as mandatory reporters. All school employees also are to be trained on sexual violence prevention by this year, including how to notice signs of abuse in children and handle reports from students.
The Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii has partnered with DOE to provide after-school programs to elementary school students who don’t have adult supervision in the afternoons. After-school providers charge a monthly fee of $200 during the academic year and are required to have a ratio of one adult for every 20 children.
After-school programs partnering with the education department are also subject to regulations from the Department of Human Services. Staff members must be trained in health and safety standards for children and should receive additional training in areas like behavior management and abuse prevention, according to DHS. Programs must also report any child abuse or neglect to the police or DHS.
After-school staff are supposed to keep discipline reports for students who repeatedly misbehave and share these reports with parents, according to DOE’s handbook for families. Kids can be temporarily suspended or expelled from their programs for poor behavior, and staff can immediately dismiss students in severe cases, such as physical or verbal threats against their peers or staff members.
State administrative rules about student discipline and misconduct in schools can also be applied to DOE after-school programs, according to the handbook.
In his statement, Guild said the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii does not tolerate “inappropriate or illegal activity on the part of any staff member, volunteer, or youth member.”
“All supervisory procedures are designed to ensure the maximum safety and protection of Club members and staff,” the statement says.
History Of Sexual Assault
In 2020, Victoria Satoafaiga, a former director of the Boys & Girls Club Maui, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor sexual assault and custodial interference after being accused of kissing and sexually penetrating a 12-year-old girl between August 2016 and April 2017.
The girl’s uncle discovered the girl’s inappropriate relationship with Satoafaiga after finding explicit text messages on the girl’s phone, according to court documents.
During an interview later at the Children’s Justice Center in Wailuku, the girl told investigators about two instances of sexual assault.
In one, she said Satoafaiga asked her to help retrieve some snacks from upstairs at the clubhouse and while there, grabbed the girl by the hips and kissed her on the lips. In another instance over spring break in 2017, the girl said Satoafaiga digitally penetrated her under her clothing while the two were alone at the clubhouse.
Search warrants from the Maui Police Department later revealed nearly 16,000 text messages over a four-month period between Satoafaiga and the girl. Some of the messages were sexually explicit.
Satoafaiga resigned from the club in April 2017.
In October of that year, the girl’s aunt and uncle called the police to report that she had run away from a program at the Boys & Girls Club. They later discovered she had been with Satoafaiga, who took her to the breakwater at Kahului Harbor and left several hickeys on the girl’s chest.
Satoafaiga was sentenced in 2020 to one year in prison.
In 2017, Eirik Stevens, a former volunteer with the Boys & Girls Club of Kauaʻi, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting two girls, ages 7 and 8.
In March 2017, he invited the 7-year-old to his apartment, where he sexually assaulted her, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser story from the time.
In the other incident, the parent of the 8-year-old girl told police Stevens rubbed the girl’s inner thigh while she was tending a garden as part of the club’s program.
At the time, then-president of the Boys & Girls Club Tim Motts said in a statement that all employees and volunteers must undergo a thorough criminal background check.
“We have a zero tolerance policy for inappropriate and illegal behavior on the part of any staff member, volunteer or club member in our organization,” the statement said, according to the Star-Advertiser.
Civil Beat reporter Megan Tagami contributed to this report.
Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.
