The family of a Brighton high school student at the center of a sexual assault case against one of his teachers said the school’s president tried to protect the teacher by not reporting the incident to police.
At the same time, they said, administrators asked the student to leave the school, even though he is the victim in the case.
Tommy Clay, 17, appeared with his parents, Mark and Sheree Clay, on NBC’s Today Show to answer questions about a sexual encounter he allegedly had last fall with Carrie McCandless, a 29-year-old teacher at the Brighton Charter High School.
McCandless was the only chaperone for a group of students including Clay on an overnight field trip to the Estes Park YMCA camp Oct. 28. During the trip, McCandless allegedly supplied alcohol to some students and kissed and groped with Clay.
The incident wasn’t reported until Nov. 2, when a 9News television reporter contacted authorities.
Sheree Clay, the boy’s mother, said Brighton Charter High School President David Mundy Sr. “continued to say to us that we have to protect a friendship here. He didn’t call police. A crime was not reported. He wanted to protect a friend,” she said.
Mundy was fired, then charged with felonies for failing to report child abuse and tampering with witnesses or victims.
McCandless, now 30, whose husband Chris McCandless was principal at the school, was fired and charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
On television this morning, the student was very nervous and frequently had trouble answering questions. He said his affair with McCandless began after he met her in summer school.
“We started out as friends and things just developed from there,” Clay said. “She was someone I could really talk to and relate to. Then we got into it a little more. We got more intimate.”
According to court documents, the affair reached the point where the couple sent 76 text messages over their cell phones in one day.
Asked if he and McCandless ever discussed what they would do if people found out about them, Clay said, “We both said it’s over if it ever comes out.”
He said McCandless eventually told her husband, the principal, about the encounter and her husband told Mundy, the school president.
“I told them I would take the blame,” Clay said. “She had a lot more to lose than I did. So I wanted to take the blame.”
He was immediately asked to leave the school, and remained away for a month before returning only briefly and realizing how much the incident had changed his life.
“At the beginning of the year, I had a lot of friends. Then I started having trouble with a couple of girl friends.”
His mother interrupted to say her son was treated initially as a hero by the male students. “One boy said it was like climbing Mt. Everest,” she said.
Her son continued: “At first it was all high-fives. A lot of guys showed me a lot more respect. But as we got further into it, I mean, I lost a lot of my friends.”
His mother added that many students turned against him after the incident came out. “It turned to How could you turn her in? She’s our favorite teacher’,” she said.
The student continued: “I went back to school about a month after everything happened. The girls in my school kind of turned their shoulders. It was a lot harder to find dates. But the other teachers were very supportive.”
His father, Mark Clay, chimed in. “This shows a lack of awareness in our society. We’re not talking about threats or force. This was an older person manipulating a child into thinking this child wants sexual contact.”
The mother added, “We sent him to school to be taught. The people we put in to care for our children we trust. It’s wrong that a teacher would do that. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl.”
The family’s attorney, Gary Fielder, said the family went on the Today Show as a part of the student’s healing process.
“This isn’t what people think–the stereotype that this is every boy’s fantasy,” Fielder said. “This has been a really bad dream for him. Anyone could have been convinced to get into this sexual relationship, that it was done willingly. But inevitably these relationships will end and that person will be hurt.
“He has been hurt. He should be playing varsity basketball. He should be thinking about going to the prom. But he’s out of school and doesn’t know what will happen next.”
Fielder said the boy lasted about two weeks after returning to school before he quit for good. He plans to be either home-schooled or return to some other school. “Either way, he will have a high school diploma by this fall,” he said.
The boy and his family, through Fielder, declined to be interviewed by The Post.
