Law&Crime Sidebar - Substitute Teacher Repeatedly Raped 11-Year-Old Boy: Prosecutors

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Alley Bardfield, 32, faces charges of criminal sexual assault of a child after a boy spent the night at her home. The 6th grader told his mother about the alleged assault and she immediately called the police. The boy took part in a sting operation over the phone to get his substitute teacher to admit to her alleged crimes. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the horrific criminal complaint with attorney John Clune, an advocate for sexual abuse survivors.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Police in Illinois say an accused sexual predator is out of the classroom and behind bars instead. A long-term substitute teacher is accused of raping one of her 11-year-old students. We're taking a closer look at these horrifying allegations against Ali Bardfield with John Clune, an attorney and advocate for sexual abuse survivors. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. 32-year-old substitute teacher, Ali Bardfield, who work for Decatur, public school in Illinois as a long-term substitute teacher, has been arrested and charged

with predatory criminal sexual assault. Does this sound familiar? We are. seeing so many of these stories. Well, in a sworn statement to the court, a detective laid out what are very disturbing details that he says police were able to uncover during the course of this investigation, all about Bardfield's appalling behavior with her sixth grade student. Think about that. I want to talk about all of this as we go in through a lot of these details with John Clune, an attorney helping fight for victims in sexual abuse cases.

John, thanks so much for coming on. I just want your initial reaction before we, even jump into the court documents. Yeah, like you said, it's incredibly disturbing. You know, I think that with the age of the kid and the nature of the sexual act is probably a little on the more unusual side, but it's a great reminder for all of us and all of us that are parents that, you know, it's not just male offenders that we have to be worried about.

There are female offenders out there. It's a much smaller percentage, but this is a perfect example of where you can have a worst case scenario from somebody that you might have thought you could trust. And by the way, thank you for the work that you do as we cover these stories. It's people like you who are able to get the victims of some justice. So according to the detective's sworn statement, this woman, there was a woman who allowed her 11-year-old son to spend the night at the home of his teacher, Ali Bardfield. So the 6th grader was there for 25 hours from March 29th to March 30th, this is according to police. And when the boy got home, he was apparently acting strangely.

This is according to his mom. So the next day, she checked his phone and what does she reportedly find? Cash app payments from Bardfield, totaling $700 over the last several months. She also reportedly checked her son's social media accounts and found photos and messages that the two had sent to each other. So when the boy's mom apparently asked him what was going on, he did admit that he had unprotected sexual intercourse with Bardfield. John, I mean, I don't know what aspect of this is more stunning than the next. Yeah, and you know, one of the things I think hits everybody initially is, you know, why is a kiddo staying at this teacher's house for 25 hours?

And it's easy to question that with the hindsight of knowing what actually transpired about the sexual abuse and the cash out payments, but knowing also that this woman has kids of her own, This could have been something that looked like just a normal sleepover at the time that the, you know, the kid went over to stay at her house for the night. So although it kind of stands out that he was at the house for 25 hours, it might have been, you know, nothing more than a normal sleepover until you find out the events thereafter. But, you know, there's also some good things that I think are notable here in what you just read. I mean, first of all, the boys acting strangely and good for the mom for following up with that. You know, a lot of times as parents, you know, our kids actually. strangely all the time. And most of the time we just kind of sluff it off. They're in a mood or

whatever. We're just going to let it go. So good for the mom for following up with that. Good for the mom for checking his phone, you know, at the age of 11. I think that, you know, phones can be a good safety measure, but they also have to have limitations and they have to be checked. And so that was a smart decision on the mom's part. And good for the kid for having the courage to admit what had happen. It must have been incredibly embarrassing and who knows what instruction he was given from Ms. Bardfield about keeping this secret. And I'm glad you mentioned that, particularly about the idea of the mom, we don't want to cast any blame on her. This is not necessarily abnormal for this to happen, but clearly what escalated was abnormal. The cash app payments, have you seen

that before? And why does that usually happen? I don't think I've seen the cash app payments. I've seen, for years, even before we had apps like this, we've seen offenders make promises or make gifts to children. It's a part of, you know, the grooming process. It's a, you know, it develops the relationship. And the interesting thing is that it actually probably qualifies as sex trafficking as well. That would be a federal crime, although Illinois may have their own version of that. But paying, you know, a financial transaction for child sexual abuse would qualify as trafficking. So giving some sort of promise. is a cum thing.

I don't know that I've seen, you know, something like Cash App or Venmo used as part of the process. It's stories like this that just remind me how important it is to be careful about who you led into your life. Do you know the people in your life? It's a scary thing to think about. But that is why I want to talk to you about our incredible sponsor who may be able to help you out.

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Ms. Bardfield, and even described that on the night of March 29th, he slept over her home, was in her bedroom, they had sexual intercourse, Bardfield even allegedly told him that she would send him nude photos on the Snapchat app. I mean, you mentioned it before, John, about how difficult this must be for this boy to admit this. But just the idea of this woman treating this, I'm putting this in quotation, relationship as if it was like to consenting adults, the exchanging of, you know, these messages, the exchanging of nude photographs, the sexual intercourse. what drives somebody in your experience to do this with a young child? Yeah, well, it's, I mean, it's, it's super predatory, it's super deviant. There's nothing, there's no kind of relationship that involves this kind of behavior with an 11-year-old.

So, you know, this is somebody who is a predatory sex offender. And, you know, we see it, you know, with victims that ages even much younger, even, you know, toddlers, infants. So I can't, I can't get into the mind of what drives somebody to do it. But it's somebody who has a super unhealthy psyche for sure. Yeah, and you just think about the impact that this has on such a young boy. But it doesn't in there because you might be saying, oh, that seems like they have a lot of evidence against Bardfield. I didn't get to this part because police had the boy text Barfield

and speak to her on the phone and FaceTime all while officers were listening and watching all of this, all in the presence of his mom too. She consented to this. And they texted and talked about birth control. and pregnancy telling him she can't get pregnant. Bartfield allegedly told the boy to delete a message. And she at one point said that she missed him a whole lot. John, have you ever seen that?

And look, law enforcement, they did get permission from the court to do this. But have you ever seen this kind of sting operation like this? This is a pretty, we call him pretextual phone calls. Now they're texts and video chats as well. But this is something that's been used by law enforcement for many, many years. It can be the case breaker, which it kind of is here as well. You know, you get a call or a text message from somebody that you recently had, you know, some sort of untoward encounter from, and you think it's a private conversation,

and it's really being directed by law enforcement. In most states, you don't even have to get, you know, court approval to do this. It's just a voluntary phone call. You do have to be careful with, you know, when you're dealing with 11-year-old, you know, you have to make sure that you have some comfort level that this is not going to be a retramatizing experience for the kiddo to make these calls. But if the kiddo can do it, which which obviously did here, it can be incredibly compelling evidence, as you just described. Oh, yeah. And not surprisingly, she was arrested the next day at her home. And after reading her Miranda rights to her

law enforcement, apparently Bardfield agreed to speak to officers and allegedly admitted what she did, not only to the sexual component, the Sex Act, but exchange. changing the nude photos component. And she tried to suggest that the boy came on to her, John. Yeah, I mean, she, you know, this is, this is the beauty of the, both the digital evidence on the phone and the pretextual phone call that they did is you can just show this individual the information they already have. And, you know, they're going to be, they're going to be hard pressed to deny what's going on

when they have her own voice, you know, in this phone call. So I'm not surprised that there were some admissions made. It's obviously disturbing that she then kind of suggest that it was the boy who was the aggressor. But we've seen, I've seen that before with other, particularly with female victim or female offenders where even much younger boys, they suggest that they are the initiator of the sexual contact, which obviously makes no sense. But either that's where she sees it in kind of a more warped view of the events or she just feels like she needs to say something to not be responsible for it. Unbelievable. Now look, these are allegations at this point, but I should tell you, the Macon County State Attorney Scott Ruder seemed to, it seems dropped the initial,

there was a grooming charge. It was quoted as saying, quote, the grooming charge is a much less serious criminal offense. I felt that we had a very strong case with respect to the more serious charge. So I didn't want to get distracted, basically on that when we've got the most serious charge filed. And the, what I mentioned before, the predatory sex act, carries, I believe, six to 60 years in prison. A, what do you make of that idea to now just go forward with, I think, the most serious charge? And B, how strong of a case is this right now? Yeah. So, I mean, different prosecutors do things differently. When I was a prosecutor, there were a lot of times that I would, I would streamline the case and go forward with just the more serious.

charge. Sometimes, depending on the facts of the case, I might go with everything that we could possibly prove. So I'm sure that's just a strategy decision on part of the prosecutor's office. And how strong of a case, it's, I mean, presuming that there isn't any Fourth Amendment issues where these, you know, this phone call or these confessions can be thrown out, it's an incredibly strong case. It would be, you know, I know she's pled not guilty, but. Which I don't get because if she, if she admitted it, I don't. I don't get it. I mean, I think she, I think that's a temporary plea is my, my suspicion. Her lawyer doesn't want her to plead guilty yet because he wants to, he or she wants to

see if they can get some sort of plea bargain, some sort of sentence concession, something other than just pleading guilty to the charges straight up. So I would expect that to be something that changes as her attorney tries to get something for her in negotiating. If she, a plea were to be worked out, what would she be looking at? prison time at all and if she took it to trial and was found guilty what do you think she'd be looking at yeah i mean you know generally speaking if you take it to trial and lose you shouldn't get punished for exercising your rights but some judges feel like you know that that's somebody who is never taken responsibility for for what they did and so they might be facing a longer sentence

i'd be surprised if there was a plea bargain that didn't involve some sort of prison time and this is an incredibly serious charge this kid is going to be dealing with this issue in some fashion for the rest of his life. And I think judges are pretty attuned to those things. So I'd be surprised if she could get something that doesn't involve a prison sentence, but maybe the job of her attorney is to negotiate something that limits the, you know, the maximum sentence that she could get. Now, the Decatur public schools, they fired Bardfield when she was arrested, not a shocker there. She's been behind bars since her arrest after a judge denied her pre-trial release. She chose to waive her preliminary hearing.

That's usually where the prosecution is kind of, you have to present your evidence of what you have. And she's going to be back at court at the beginning of June. So we'll see if she changes her plea or what might happen. The victim's family announced in early April that they've retained attorneys to pursue legal action against not only Bardfield, but also Decatur Public Schools. The legal team said in a statement, quote, on April 3, 2024, Ali Bardfield was arrested on charges of grooming and predatory criminal sexual assault of our client. accused abused her, the accused abused her position as a sixth grade teacher to exploit our client's trust and engage in reprehensible acts. Ms. Bardfield's actions have had a profound and lasting impact on our client, which will

likely lead to significant physical, emotional, and psychological challenges. The perpetrator's predatory actions have left our client with permanent injuries that have greatly disrupted his and his family's daily life. As a result, we will be pursuing justice not only against Ms. Barfield, but also the school district as a whole, which failed to properly train and supervise in order to ensure the safety and well-being of its students. We were determined to hold both the perpetrator and the school fully accountable under the law. Strong lawsuit, John? Maybe. You know, I think, you know, you have to keep in mind when schools are responsible when they've done something wrong,

not when one of their employees necessarily has done something wrong. So that's why the lawsuit is couched as failure to train or supervise. So you have to have some sort of information that, you the school was on notice that they should have done more training or supervising for this particular individual. It's a case that could get strong as the case moves forward, or maybe there's more facts that the family has that aren't disclosed in the limited articles that are out there. But it's certainly understandable to be very frustrated with the school, and there certainly could be liability there, but we have to wait and see. And she was married, Bardfield married with children. Husband, Casey, recently filed for their marriage to be dissolved

and also filed for an emergency order of protection from his former wife on behalf of the four minor children. As far as we can tell, from court records, Barfield doesn't have any criminal history aside from some minor traffic infractions and ordinance violations. Let's just end it with this, John. Not surprising we see somebody in these cases living another life, having an affair. I mean, I've covered so many of these cases of educators who are married or have children or who are, uh, you know, engaged, they do this. And does that ever surprise you? Does that ever shock you? I mean, it doesn't surprise me. And I guess the, the media concern is having these, you know, her own kiddos interviewed, um, because it's, it's not uncommon to have crossover

behavior between, you know, an offender finding victims that aren't their own children and are their own children. So, um, so hopefully they're not more victims here, but that would be my my first reaction to hearing about the kids and the need for the emergency protection order from the husband or with us. John Clune, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate your point of view. Thank you, Jesse. See you.

That's all we have for you here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.