Rebecca Surendorff - Ohioans For Child Protection

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Seven six. Happy Friday to you. By the time, it's
please welcome to the fifty five Percy Morning Show for
an outstanding organizational, Hilands for Child Protection. Rebecca, sirandor Rebecca,
welcome to the program. It's a real pleasure to have
you on today.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, thanks for having me back on. We really appreciate
how you've been staying on this story.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh. I was outraged, just simply outrage that this pervert,
disgusting piece of human excrement had the nerve to request
a lower sex offender status after what he did and
his plea agreement. Well, I saw that he was in
front of Judge Gizon. There has been a development. She said,

(00:53):
how about no boiled down in her order here that
was just released the other day. First off, before we
start into the details about this horrific guy, let my
listeners know about Highlands for Child Protection. I'm curious to
know how you got involved with it, if I can
ask that.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah. So back in twenty nineteen, my four kids were
students at Saint Ignatius on the west side of Cincinnati,
and father Jeff Drew had been assigned back in twenty
eighteen to the parish and this wasn't my first encounter
Withdrew in my life. He'd actually been my grade school
music teacher and music minister when I was a student
at Saint Jude.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
And I had no idea when he was assigned to
our parish the very well documented past that he had,
mostly because many of the events took place in my
childhood and a lot of weird things can be misfiled
in a child's brain. So while I saw some of
the graving activities such as him massaging boy's shoulders and

(01:51):
then sticking his hands under their shirt down through their collar,
along their back, I saw it so frequently and there
was one reacting to it around me that those kinds
of events are very easily messfiled to a child.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Of course, they don't. Children don't have life experience, they
don't understand what's appropriate and inappropriate, and they certainly don't
have a grasp of the law.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
So fast forward to my four children in the school
that he's essentially the superintendent of. Because he has higher
and fire authority over the principle and the teachers, he
would be the final voice in deciding if a child
is being suspended or expelled. So that really is a
position of authority to be a pastor at one of

(02:35):
our Catholic schools. So basically, my classmate Paul bravely stepped
forward in the summer of twenty nineteen and came forward
about the abusity suffered from father Jeff Drail And that's
when we saw the nine charges happen in the arrassed
and me and some other moms like Teresa den Whinnie Herman,

(02:56):
we decided that there must have been a larger failure
place that a man like this was running our school.
And that's when we did our first public record request
and realized that there was much more to this story
and that he had a well documented past spanning three decades,
three counties, from how protective service calls about him, countless

(03:19):
parents reaching out to the archdiocese, three criminal investigations in
Butler County, and through all of this he was never
placed on leave. There was no investigation within the church
as to how this all came to pass. That he
was running the largest elementary Catholic school in the state
of Ohio, and we thought, you know what, the state

(03:40):
of Ohio also allowed this to happen. We need to
go look at our lawmakers in Columbus and started dressing
Ohio's child sex abuse laws because it turns out that
while we speak frequently about abuse in the Catholic Church,
the big story is is that one and four k
one of four girls and one in thirteen to one

(04:02):
and twenty boys. It depends which study you look at,
are being sexually abused before they turn eighteen, And to
look at Ohio more specifically, we just saw this out
as the Girls Report come out last year and their
climate survey found that were above the national average for
girl abuse. Over twenty percent of Ohio girls reported some
form of sexual violence in the prior twelve months. And

(04:25):
to put that into perspective, can you imagine if one
in five cars have been stolen in Ohio. So we
decided that more needs to be done. So for five
years we've been advocating up at the state House, just
a group of parents, mostly moms, asking lallmakers to truly
treat this public safety issue at the level it needs

(04:47):
to be. And so we saw the governor sign the
grooming bill earlier this year. But we're still advocating for
things like statute limitations reform.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
There's so many questions I've got I know it's okay.
First off, on a fundamental basis as far as legislation
is concerned, why did it You've been advocating for this
for such a long time. This seems to be something
that should have been on the books now for decades.
Why and what resistance did you get? Why did it
take so long to actually get pen on paper and

(05:18):
make this a criminal violation? And how come they have
the statute of limitations haven't been changed. I mean we're
talking about children here. I mean they need to be
protected more than any person on the planet. Adult police
can can rationalize, have an understanding, take acts and steps
to protect themselves. I mean, these are the most innocent
of all. Why was there any resistance at all to

(05:40):
get in this moving forward or more quickly so?

Speaker 2 (05:43):
I do think with the grooming bill, a lot of
it is because this was This is amongst fun the
early efforts in the United States to criminalize grooming. This
is actually already illegal in places like Australia and England
for the last twenty years, but in the United States
we were at the forefront here of Ohio to asked
for dreaming to be criminalized, and to be well done.

(06:05):
We didn't want something that has been a drag innocent
people into court. So part of that is because we
were first in grooming, for the most part, statue limitations reform.
There's some powerful interest in our state that have been
pushing against that. We did a partial reform back in
two thousand and six. And if it wasn't for the
efforts of the victims from two thousand and four to

(06:28):
two thousand and six on statue limitations reform, my classmate
Paul would have had the court doors shut on him.
The lesser known part of this story, though, is that
there had been an effort to expand statue limitations more
fully because the average age disclosed abuse is age fifty
two when you've been on child victim. Well, there's a

(06:49):
second known victim in the Jeff dra case, and there
has been indicators that there are more victims, But the
second victim that came forward with similar evidence abused in
the same school building over at same time period. He
was just arbitrarily that little bit older. So the court
doors were shut. If both victims would have had their

(07:09):
day in court, would we even be talking about Jeff
Drey being released next year?

Speaker 1 (07:14):
I imagine not? And so my listeners have a full
accounting of what happened to Paul Nyer this so and
so Jeff Drew pleaded guilty in twenty twenty one to
repeatedly raping Paul when Paul was nine and ten years old.
And it happened in the late nineteen eighties and nineties
when Nira was a student in Altar Boy at Saint June, Bridgetown,
where Drew happened to be the music teacher. I and

(07:37):
that you know that what brought that You brought this
to my attention and having on the programs, because this
guy had the audacity to seek a lower level sex
offender status in spite of the fact that his plea
agreement which locked him up for seven years, he said
he would register as a what is a Tier one
sex offender, so he has to register regularly and everybody
gets in the neighborhood gets a notification from the police

(07:58):
lettinghim know who he is, where he is, and what
he looks like for the protection of the children that
are in the neighborhood. That he had the nerve to
do that, I just I want to throttle the guys
thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
And I wonder like how is he affording all this
legal at.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Oh, there's another good question, and you know, another looming
question of the background of this for rebeconcerned Dorf. Maybe
you've been able to get to the bottom of this.
You said that they the church had known about his antics,
if I can call them that, for a long long
time before he was finally finally got busted. Aren't Isn't
that criminal in and of itself? If you're you're facilitating

(08:34):
or otherwise covering up the molestation of children, you are
in as far as I'm concerned, as guilty as the
guy committing the acts.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I think enablers are key allowing the fenders access our children,
and that is another area of the law that I
would like to see our lawmakers. Well, they first that
when it's repeated within an institution, and he had people
that truly have the power to stop.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
It, they facilitated, They put him in contact, close contact,
in a position of authority about around a bunch of
young children. Mean, yes, it's like you're asking for this
to happen again. Lives to be ruling.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
They fixated offenders average one hundred and fifty victims in
their lifetime, and they ascend into their geriatric years. So
it's vitally important that we take a look at this
problem and we try to approach it from every level
that we can, from comuma, informing things that work with youth,

(09:35):
having stronger luves, having our statue limitations reform, and one
survivor rightfully pointed out to me that since Ohio is
one of the handful of states left that provides the
statue limitations to protect child defenders, he likened us to
being a sanctuary state for child sex abuse because we're
one of the few states left in the whole country
that we're running a clock that you'd get off scott.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Free, especially when you're being held by the folks that
are enabling you to have presents around children in a
position of authority. Let's pause. We'll bring Rebecca sore indour
fact from Ohiolands for Child Ohlands for Chold Protection. You
can find them on Facebook, of course, Ohiolands for Child Protection.
Let's pause from them, We'll bring you right back. I
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(11:01):
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Seventy two for the high on Sunday. Right now, it's
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Speaker 3 (12:05):
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(12:26):
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Speaker 1 (12:37):
The talk station seven twenty fifty five KRCD talk station
hard for seniors in studio after the bottom of the
hour at the bottom of the hour, looking forward to
having them and doing great work for seniors that are
in senior facilities. In the meantime, Ohioan's for Child Protection
Rebecca Sorendorf on online talking about this Jeff Drew guy,

(12:58):
this pervert pre to music teacher who was busted for
and pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping a gentleman named Paul Nyer.
He is still in lock up. According to the reporting
from who is in Gift credit to WCPO, he's in
the Noble Correctional Institute, which is described as a medium
security prison for men in Caldwell, Noble County, and expected

(13:19):
release date August seventeenth, twenty twenty sixth I imagine Judge Gibz
probably as offended as I was the idea that he
had the audacity to seek a lower level sex offender
status when he got out. But no, she said, you
got to register with the Sheriff's department. I guess every

(13:40):
I said, every ninety days for the rest of his life,
he has to register's addressed with the Sheriff's Department, and
then they have to send out photographs to the community
letting everyone know where this guy lives and what he
looks like. Also, is that.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Correct, Yes, that's part of the agreement.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Good. We should.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
But I want parents and grandparents out there to realize
too that for child sex abuse, in part because of
our statural limitations and the delay and reporting, that we
have a really low conviction rate around these crimes. So
for every person you see on an offender registry in

(14:21):
your community, just know that there's probably another you know,
fifteen to twenty five offenders in your area that go
completely unnamed.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, and you know, with with online communication and kids
gaming all the time, it just creates more and more
opportunities for these groomers to have access to children and
parents are oblivious to what's going on when their kids
are in the basement playing games and that I know
that's one vehicle because I've read so many articles about it.
That's how they gain access and gain confidence.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Great, and we actually saw research at the University New
Hampshire that shows about one in six kids are being
exploited online and about sixty percent of that exploitation is
someone who already knows that child are in their offline life,
so they're presenting many times as another kids really a
love interest. This happens a lot to our team boys

(15:13):
and they think they're communicating with a girl of their
age and they start exchanging images with them and it
quickly turns into that they're being blackmailed with their money
or further images, which Ohio just made sextortion illegal last year.
And this is why we need to be fast tracking

(15:34):
this kind of legislation, still being thoughtful about it, bringing
the right people to the table. But each bill shouldn't
be taking five to twenty years to pass. So we
connect it with Senator Blessing and Representative Rachel Baker, and
we've asked them to start a sexual Violence Caucus. We're
still working out exactly what the name is going to be,
but we need a place where our lawmakers are going

(15:58):
to come together with those on the front line in
our state, from law enforcement to the good people at
our schools and those working at places like Madison, and
get these people to the table and start mapping out
where's our system falling short for our kids and what
can we do up in Columbus to make sure that
it is a safe place to raise the family in

(16:19):
Ohio and that our children aren't being exploited at this rate.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Amen to that. Is there any pending legislation or proposed
legislations floating around behind the scenes in committee or anything
right now that my listeners can get in touch with
their elected officials and pressure them to move it forward.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Not at this moment because we just started a new
General Assembly, so they're all busy with the budget at
this moment, okay, but we are working on getting these
things started. I think one of the biggest thing that
you can do is call your lawmaker and tell them
that we should have statue limitations reformed, and that you
ask for this sexual violence pocket, that they join it,

(16:56):
that they support its work because it such a multi
tier issue at this moment. For example, many many states
already require in their screening of educators that you check
if there's child protective service calls on the individual in
the father Just through case, we can see that he

(17:17):
had child protective service calls in Montgomery County, Butler County,
in Hamilton County, yet he had superintendent like authority at
Saint Ignacious School while that's a religious institution. Ohio does
not have that kind of protection in any of its schools,
whether religious or public, at this moment. But also we

(17:39):
see that there's carve outs for things like aeronwall, which
is body safety training for children. We got that in
all of Ohio's public schools, but there is an exemption
for all the private and religious schools in our state,
and we would like to equally protect every child. Parents
have an expectation, whether they're sending their children to religious

(18:01):
school they're choosing or a public school, that there should
be equal protection from child sex abuse.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
And if you're a private school, why wouldn't you implement
your own policies to keep these children in out of
harm's way. I mean, that's a question worth asking. You
don't need some legislator to tell you what to do.
You're a private entity. Put these protections in place, jeez, Louise.
And if you're a known if there's a known pedophile
working for you, why don't you turn them into the

(18:27):
cops and fire them and get them out of the
presence of children. Oh this just gets my eye up.
I am sorry for getting on a rant here, Rebecca,
but I don't understand any resistance to this type of reform.
I just don't get it anyhow.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
You think it's going to take every day people stepping
up to make it priority because it too quickly the
attention goes elsewhere in Columbus and US everyday people we
need to keep speaking up. Following our Facebook page when
there's a specific though, we always share good what needs
to do. Act But just let your lawnmaker. Now show

(19:03):
up at a community event with them, or start visiting
your local clubs. We actually are a bipartisan group. We
show up. Of course, you are the Republican clubs and
every day people deeply care about this, but it isn't
a front burner issue at the State House on a
day to day basis.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Well it should be in Rebecca Sorender, if you have
a place open spot here on the fifty five Carse
Morning Show. If legislation comes up you need support for it,
you come on my program. You talk to my listeners
about what's proposed and what we need to do to
a call of action, we'll call it here, So you're
welcome on my program. I certainly appreciate the behalf of
every child out there, the work that you're doing on

(19:39):
their behalf, and I wish you all the best of
luck and bring in some reform here to the state
of Ohio.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Thank you so much for staying on this and for
public Christian overt Channel nine. She has just been on
this case for years now and the iteam's been on it.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's great. I'm glad to know that as well. Rebecca.
You take care of a wonderful weekend, and again, just
give Joe a call if there's anything on the front
will help you out. It's seven twenty eight to fifty
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