Walnut Grove Teacher Charged With Sodomy At Another School

FLORISSANT, MO — Deonte Taylor, a Walnut Grove Elementary School teacher, has been charged with three counts of first-degree statutory sodomy for a sexual assault that prosecutors say happened when he was a teacher's assistant at Lusher Elementary School in the nearby Hazelwood School District.

Authorities say the assault happened in November 2015. Taylor is accused of pulling a 7-year-old student out of class and sodomizing him in an empty room. Prosecutors say they have DNA evidence linking Taylor to the assault.

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The boy reported the assault in 2015, but police didn't arrest Taylor until Thursday, more than three years later.

The Post-Dispatch reports Taylor was placed on leave and subsequently fired for unrelated reasons after the allegations came to light in Hazelwood, but parents weren't notified and Taylor was later rehired in by the Ferguson-Florissant School District.

"The district would not knowingly hire a potential employee who had a record of or had committed crimes against children," the district wrote in a prepared statement.

The district says it conducted a background check and that Taylor had no criminal history, but it's not clear how the allegation — which was included in his file from Hazelwood, according to a Hazelwood district spokesperson — slipped by in the hiring process.

A warrant was issued for Taylor on Wednesday and he was taken into custody on Thursday. He is held on $250,000 cash-only bond. No attorney is listed.

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