MUKILTEO — A former paraeducator and Boys & Girls Club volunteer has been charged with sexually assaulting a student over the course of about a year in 2020.
John Curran, 41, worked as a special needs educator at Everett High School and volunteer volleyball coach at the Boys & Girls Club. In April 2021, an employee at the youth center reported Curran to Everett police, claiming he sexually assaulted a teenage girl multiple times on field trips and at his home. Curran was questioned by police the next day.
In August 2021, he was charged with rape of a child in the third degree. Curran has been out of custody since.
On Thursday, prosecutors added an additional charge of third degree child molestation. Curran pleaded not guilty to both counts.
The first documented incident occurred in December 2019 when the girl, who was younger than 16, was watching the defendant’s kids at his home, according to court documents. Curran reportedly pulled the girl onto a bed and inappropriately touched her.
After the first incident, the teenager told investigators Curran would kiss her in meetings and inappropriately touch her during field trips, sometimes in front of children, according to charging papers.
In summer 2020, Curran had stopped volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club and organizing “his own field trips” where he was a supervisor, according to the charges.
Curran raped the teen girl on multiple occasions at this time, once in his home and another time on a field trip to Green Lake, according to court documents. The teen girl repeatedly told the defendant she did not want to engage in sexual acts with him, but he would threaten her, police reports say. On a field trip to Leavenworth, Curran reportedly told the girl of a nearby forest where he would hide a body if he were ever to kill someone.
In October 2020, Curran left the teen girl a voicemail saying he loved her, despite the two cutting off contact, police reports say. In an interview with investigators, the defendant said he did not mean “I love you” in a romantic way and that he was “extremely depressed and suicidal.”
In April 2021, the girl decided to report her former mentor after seeing him back at the Mukilteo Boys & Girls Club. She feared he would hurt another child.
Curran initially denied the girl had ever come to his house alone or had sexual contact with her when interviewed by the police in April 2021. He stated he was concerned the teen was “attempting to frame him,” according to court documents.
In June 2021, Curran’s ex-wife filed a domestic violence protection order against him.
“John has a very long history of erratic and abusive behavior over the last eight years,” she wrote. “As a mother, it killed me to know my children were present when such horrific behavior was happening.”
In October 2021, prosecutors filed a sexual assault protection order for Curran, prohibiting him from contacting the teen in any form.
This week, the defendant agreed to a bench trial, in which Snohomish Superior Court Judge Anna Alexander will review the presented evidence and come to a verdict without a jury.
Curran’s defense attorney John Chase could not be reached this week by a Herald reporter.
The Boys & Girls Club did not immediately respond to a reporter’s email.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated John Curran’s age. He’s 41.
Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.
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