Bus driver Ella Holland testified Thursday that she never saw any of the several students she regularly drove to the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf being molested while on the bus despite a confession by one of the boys.
A 14-year-old boy told authorities that Holland had once shouted "no touching" when a 16-year-old boy was molesting him. The 14-year-old said that the 16-year-old routinely sexually assaulted him, describing a rape, and that both he and the 16-year-old had molested and sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy while the bus was on Georgia 400 between last September and January.
"I think I would notice that but I didn't see anything," Holland testified at a bond hearing for the two teenagers in Fulton County Superior Court.
Magistrate Karen Woodson granted both teens signature bonds on charges that included aggravated sexual battery and aggravated child molestation but she dismissed the charges of aggravated sodomy, finding there was not enough evidence to support it. Woodson ordered that the defendants and victim names be kept confidential during the hearing after defense lawyers objected to news coverage.
Holland said she had twice been "Bus driver of the year" before Fulton County schools dismissed her in April after the charges surfaced. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he is investigating whether to bring charges against Holland for failure to report abuse.
Fulton County schools police Officer Nicole Wright testified that an examine at Children's Health Care of Atlanta at Scottish Rite hospital confirmed the sexual assault against the 14-year-old, who also told police of four different assaults on the 10-year-old including a time when he held the boy down so the 16-year-old could sexually assault him. The 10-year-old boy told investigators that he was molested many times on the bus but denied some of the worst abuse described by the 14-year-old, Wright said.
But she also acknowledged she did little follow up investigation after the case was referred to her by Clarkston police. The school for the deaf is located in Clarkston.
Noah Pines, the lawyer for the 16-year-old, contended the charges were unbelievable and lambasted the investigation into the abuse by the Fulton County schools police.
"This case is horribly investigated," he said. “According to the testimony of the investigator all four of these incidents somehow magically happened on Georgia 400 by I-285. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Magistrate Karen Woodson ordered that the defendants and victim names be kept confidential during the hearing after defense lawyers objected to press coverage.
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