Opinion ID: 773932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Abuse Suffered by Tate

Text: 12 Aliya Tate was incarcerated at YDC from June 13, 1991 through May 4, 1993 and from July 12, 1994 to March 28, 1995. In November 1994, when she was 16, Tate was in a counseling session with Whetzel in Whetzel's back office discussing Tate's past sexual abuse, whereupon Whetzel began to rub Tate's leg and lower thigh. On several other occasions in November and December 1994 and January 1995 Whetzel attempted to kiss Tate and touch her genitals. On the night of December 12, Whetzel tried to touch Tate inappropriately while they were alone in Unit 7's TV room, but Tate immediately left the room. At around this time, two other students reported (falsely, according to Tate) that Tate and Whetzel had had sex in the TV room on December 12. This allegation was reported to Liggett, who assigned Robert McLean to investigate. Tate testified that Whetzel threatened that he would lengthen her stay at YDC if she told anyone what he had done, so Tate gave McLean a sworn statement that nothing had occurred between her and Whetzel. 13 Finally, on January 29, 1995 Whetzel cornered Tate in the back office at the unit, prevented her from leaving, grabbed her, kissed her, put his hands down her pants and then tried to pick her up and lick her chest. After this incident, Tate wrote up a Student Incident Report (SIR) complaining of Whetzel's behavior that evening along with the previous incidents and gave it to the duty officer. The duty officer then notified Earnhart of the allegation. The next day, Tate talked to Nora Burley about the previous day's incident as well as all the past incidents with Whetzel, at which time, according to Tate's deposition, Burley said to her that she kind of knew he was messing with students but she didn't know that he was messing with me. 14 As a result of Tate's filing of the SIR, Liggett instituted an investigation, and YDC notified Child Line. Child Line in turn notified the Pennsylvania State Police which initiated its own investigation into Whetzel's conduct, eventually resulting in Whetzel's criminal conviction. In the course of their investigation the police found two other former residents of YDC who had been sexually assaulted by Whetzel: Melissa Guyaux and Tina McAfee.