A candidate for Anne Arundel County’s school board was once charged with child sexual abuse and removed from his teaching position at Northeast High School over those and other accusations.

Though Charles “Chuck” Yocum, 61, of Pasadena, was found not guilty of the charges 30 years ago, school officials had enough concerns that they launched an extensive internal investigation. That investigation turned up more claims that Yocum sexually harassed or made inappropriate comments to students as young as 13. He never returned to teaching.

”The allegations against Mr. Yocum present a significant dilemma for school officials,” according to the internal investigative report from 1994, which has never been made public but was reviewed by The Baltimore Banner.

“Mr. Yocum was found not guilty of sexual child abuse in a criminal court. This investigation, however, reviewed additional allegations against Mr. Yocum which were not criminal behaviors but possibly indicative of misconduct or immorality.”

Investigators recommended the school system charge him with professional misconduct as part of an employee disciplinary process, and The Baltimore Sun reported he was fired in August 1994. Yocum was allowed to work in central office positions while he appealed the action, and eventually struck a deal with the school system behind closed doors. He worked in administrative positions until he retired this summer.

The Banner last month interviewed two of Yocum’s former students. The first woman, whose allegations of sexual abuse led to Yocum’s 1993 arrest and trial the following year, said she stands by her story. The second woman’s allegations that Yocum propositioned her to engage in sex acts and wrote her explicit notes were never made public, and law enforcement investigated and did not file charges.

Their accounts 30 years later closely match those in the internal investigative report, a confidential record neither woman has seen. Both women said they want voters to reject Yocum at the ballot box.

“I just want justice that he doesn’t get this job,” said the woman who testified against him at trial.

“That man should not be around children whatsoever,” said the other woman, who believes school officials never took her allegations seriously.

The Banner does not identify people who say they survived sexual abuse or harassment without their consent.

In an email, Yocum said he categorically denies the allegations.

He said the school system dropped its disciplinary case against him after he obtained an affidavit from someone who claimed the first woman recanted her accusation.

Yocum initially said he had no knowledge of the second woman’s accusations, a claim the investigative report contradicts. In a subsequent email, Yocum said he was “never informed it involved notes” and was only told that she claimed he’d invited her to his home.

He said he never wanted to return to the classroom because the school system wasn’t supportive of teachers.

The school system, he said, continued to put him in proximity to children for 31 years of his career.

In one case, Yocum said, he assisted in developing a magnet program at Glen Burnie High School. For the past 10 years, he said, his office was “inside a middle school surrounded by students.”

Bob Mosier, a spokesman for the school system, said Yocum “may choose to speak about any part of his personnel record he wishes. Our school system continues to decline to discuss personnel matters of any employee.”

A contentious race

Before Yocum retired in July, he had been senior manager of business and community development for the school system. He is married and has three children, including one who’s in high school in Anne Arundel County.

If he is elected, Yocum — like all school board members — would be expected to regularly visit schools and attend events with students. His campaign website indicates he supports more discipline in schools, a back-to-basics approach to academics and stronger parental rights.

“People should vote for me because of my 36 years within public education,” Yocum said. “I understand the needs of the parents and support their right to be involved in their student’s education.”

Yocum is running against Erica McFarland in District 3, which includes Pasadena and Gibson Island. McFarland led Yocum by about 700 votes in the four-way primary race that narrowed the field to two.

McFarland said she was saddened by Yocum’s use of disparaging language and the allegations against him. “I remain committed to leading with integrity, respect, and care for our community,” she said in a statement.

Though school board candidates don’t run on a party ticket, Yocum has expressed Republican positions on Facebook and ridiculed Democratic politicians. He has said he backs the removal of school library books with sexually explicit material.

Yocum has also faced criticism from the teachers union for using demeaning language to describe women, referring to them in long political ramblings on Facebook as “bitch,” “slut” and “whore.” He has also used the word “retard.” He is a former special education teacher.

“We would never allow students to openly mock and denigrate others in our schools,” the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County and the Parental Alliance for Student Safety said in a statement. “We should not tolerate such behavior in someone running to serve on the Board of Education.”

Yocum said in an email that he didn’t use the term “retard” in a derogatory way to describe someone with disabilities and pointed out that it has several definitions. In one post, he wrote that “CNN was on full retard mode with their opinion piece.”

He did not answer a question about his use of derisive terms to describe women.

‘I hate him for what he did to me’

The accusations against Yocum first surfaced in a letter.

”To whomever it may concern,” the letter opened, “It has come to my attention that a teacher at your school has had sexual favors performed on a student in exchange for better grades.”

The former student’s fiancé sent the letter in 1993 to Northeast High School Principal Joseph Carducci Jr. He then turned it over to Anne Arundel County Police.

The letter named the teacher: Charles Yocum. And it identified the former student, who by then was 20 years old. Police went to her house, where she recounted how the alleged sexual abuse began in the 10th or 11th grade, as she was dealing with a tumultuous family life.

Yocum, she reported, was nice and showed concern about her well-being. She told investigators that she performed oral sex on him. The woman said at the time and in recent interviews that the abuse took place in Yocum’s classroom closet and in a bedroom in his house, where they had intercourse.

Detectives noticed that during the interview the woman appeared withdrawn. She shook and often covered her face with her hands. She ended her written statement to police, “I HATE HIM FOR WHAT HE DID TO ME!!”

Three witnesses told police she’d disclosed the abuse to them at the time it happened. But others, including her stepmother, cast doubt on her credibility.

A grand jury indicted Yocum on charges of sexual child abuse, unnatural and perverted sexual practice, and assault and battery. Prosecutors dismissed the last charge before trial.

The Sun and The Capital closely covered the 1994 trial. The newspapers described Yocum as a popular teacher and coach who was married and living in Glen Burnie. The defense called 27 witnesses, including several teachers who testified that they had not seen any inappropriate behavior. Yocum’s attorney told the jury the allegations were “complete fabrications” by someone who had a history of lying and that she’d previously pleaded guilty to passing bad checks.

The jury found Yocum not guilty of all remaining charges. One juror told The Sun that “all we had to go on was one person’s word that it happened.”

Following his acquittal, Yocum told reporters that he was thrilled that the case was over and hoped to return to teaching. “I’d go back to school on Monday if they’d let me,” he said.

That never happened.

Instead, the school system almost immediately launched an internal investigation. School investigators found the former student had told several friends and a neighbor about the alleged sexual abuse at the time and she also detailed it in her diary.

Her father told school investigators that the girl’s stepmother had checked with other students, who didn’t report problems with Yocum. So “we let it go,” he said, adding that he believed his daughter was telling the truth.

As a fragile 16-year-old who felt unloved by her family, the former student said Yocum was easily able to manipulate her emotions. At the time, she believed that his affections were real — and that he loved her. Now in her 50s, she sees his actions as those of a predator.

In an interview, the woman said it took her years to overcome the trauma. She said she has not lived a perfect life, and she admits to having written bad checks, and abused alcohol. During one particularly bad period, she said, she tried to end her life.

After many years of counseling, she said she is now at peace and sober.

“My life has been in turmoil. I can’t blame it all on that, because you choose how you want to live,” she said. Since hearing about Yocum’s candidacy for the school board, “I have fallen to pieces again.”

‘We were told to stay quiet’

The school system’s investigative report also details allegations that Yocum propositioned another student to engage in sex acts with him.

Child protective services and police investigated that claim in 1990 and concluded “there was no sufficient information to substantiate the allegations against Mr. Yocum and the case was closed,” according to the school system’s report.

But in 1994, a school system investigator met with the student to obtain a statement.

When she was 13 and in ninth grade, the student told an investigator, she feared that she was pregnant. One of her special education teachers recommended that she talk to Yocum because he was a paramedic, according to the report.

Yocum, she said, asked about her symptoms and suggested letting him know if she did not get her period. Later, the report indicates, he started asking what she described as weird questions:

“What would you do with a guy?” “How far would you go?” “Would you put your hand on my leg?”

The student reported that Yocum would slip her sexually explicit notes when she went up to his desk for help. She alleged that he would give her a pen to circle yes or no, the report states, and then use a black marker to cross out the note.

One time, she asserted, Yocum invited her to his house to “play around in bed.” On a different occasion, she claimed Yocum asked her to perform oral sex on him, according to the report.

Yocum, she alleged, would tell her that she was pretty and wink at her in the hallway. She said she was afraid of going to school, the report states, and a staff member accused her of lying after her mother reported the harassment.

At the time, Yocum denied the accusation. He was not charged with a crime.

Yocum told a school system investigator that he’d met with police and child protective services and added that he received written notice that the allegations were unsubstantiated. He said the school system never talked about the situation with him, according to the report.

Now in her late 40s, the former student who made those allegations told The Banner that the school system made her see a counselor who blamed her and her parents.

She said she does not feel that the school system took her allegations seriously. The experience, she said, has had a “great impact on my life.”

“I’ve held this in for so many years,” she said. “We were told to stay quiet, and my mom just told me to stay quiet.”

The internal investigation outlines two additional allegations against Yocum.

One was an assertion that he was “going with” a female student he tutored, which both of them denied.

Another was an accusation that Yocum used sexually explicit language in discussions with male students. The school system gave him the opportunity to respond to each claim, according to the report, and determined solely based on his responses that the allegation was unfounded.

The report noted that the behavior Yocum was accused of often happens behind closed doors.

“The lack of direct witnesses to these allegations cannot be construed as evidence that they did not occur,” the report states.

A climate of silence

The public attention given to Yocum’s case was in part the result of a cluster of accusations at Northeast High School. Prosecutors brought three cases against faculty members, creating a swirl of media coverage and attention to sexual abuse in Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

One of the teachers, Ronald Price, elevated the cases to national prominence when he admitted to the abuse on “Geraldo!,” a talk show known for sensational interviews. Price was convicted of the abuse in 1993 and sentenced to 26 years in prison. He died in 1998.

In the wake of the scandal, the principal and the superintendent were replaced.

Maryland’s state school superintendent at the time, Nancy Grasmick, hired a Washington, D.C., law firm to look into how the county school system had handled allegations against teachers and determine whether there were more systemic issues that needed to be addressed.

Attorney Alan Baron conducted a four-month investigation for the state education department that uncovered 48 reports of sexual abuse in Anne Arundel County schools between 1980 and 1993, 22 of which were not reported to police until the investigators uncovered them.

“The climate throughout the system has discouraged rather than encouraged the reporting and preventing of abusive relationships and practices,” the state-ordered investigation concluded. Its findings were widely reported in the press at the time. The Banner obtained a copy through a public records request. Yocum is not named in the report.

The report details multiple allegations against Price at Northeast High School that didn’t result in disciplinary action against him. The report said Price allowed other teachers to use his apartment as a place to take students to abuse them.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools officials said last week in a statement that they have completely revamped the way they handle investigations. A team of school officials now meets weekly to review any allegations to ensure they are handled quickly. The school board adopted a policy in June 1994 prohibiting staff from dating or having sexual relationships with students.

“Our process for reviewing and resolving cases is one that has been seen as a model throughout the state,” said Mosier, the school system spokesperson.

Thirty years ago, Yocum also saw the process as flawed. Days after he was found not guilty of the charges against him, he told the Washington Post that he and his lawyers were working on a book to help other teachers handle cases of false accusations against them. “Nothing is going to keep you from being accused,” Yocum told The Post, but there are steps that teachers can take to disprove the allegations. That book, he told The Banner, was never published.

Now, Yocum’s decision to run for public office has forced him to again confront those allegations.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.