Prosecutors Get Bail Increase for Indicted Former Teacher’s Aide

BOSTON, May 10, 2012—A former teacher’s assistant was taken into custody today after Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office successfully argued to triple his bail in light of indictments charging sexual misconduct with children.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney Leora Joseph, chief of Conley’s Child Protection Unit, Suffolk Superior Court Clerk Magistrate Gary D. Wilson increased LaSHAWN HILL’s bail from $10,000 cash to $30,000. Court officers took Hill into custody at his arraignment this morning.

Wilson also granted Joseph’s request that Hill abide by strict conditions of release if he posts that bail. Hill must stay at least 100 yards from all schools, must stay away from all children under 17 and not seek any employment that would bring him into contact with children, and must have no contact with the victims or any witnesses in either case. If he posts bail, he must wear a GPS tracking device, Wilson ordered.

Hill had previously been charged in Dorchester District Court with lewd and lascivious conduct, a misdemeanor, for his alleged actions with a 14-year-old special needs student at the Harbor Pilot Middle School late last year.

On May 4, after further investigation by Conley’s office and Boston Police detectives assigned to the Crimes Against Children Unit, the Suffolk County Grand Jury indicted Hill on that charge and two additional felonies – lascivious acts with a child, a charge stemming from that same incident, and indecent assault and battery on a child for a March 2011 incident involving a 7-year-old boy, also a special needs student. The indictments move Hill’s case from Dorchester District Court to Suffolk Superior Court, where it will be adjudicated.

Joseph told the court that the indictments reflect two separate incidents involving two different children in two different schools. The first took place in March of last year, when Hill allegedly took a 7-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., School student to the bathroom and touched him inappropriately.

Investigators learned of that event while investigating a second incident in which an employee at the Harbor School found Hill and a student, who is autistic and nonverbal, alone in a room with their pants unfastened. Hill allegedly made incriminating statements in the aftermath of that discovery, but is not alleged to have touched the child.

Hill is additionally charged in district court with larceny from the Harbor School for his alleged involvement in the theft of five laptop computers.

Hill was represented today by attorney Geoffrey Waller II. He will return to court on June 14.

–30–

All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.