Man charged with rape of girl at Y was fired from school after complaint

The man now charged with raping a 4-year-old girl at the Downtown YMCA worked in the Y’s Kid Zones after he was fired from a church preschool following a complaint about “inappropriate touching,” officials said Friday.

Caleb Gaston worked at the Kid Zones at both the Downtown and East YMCAs.

Gaston’s employment at Plymouth Learning Center was “terminated on 10/9/17 due to one complaint of inappropriate touching,” according to a statement read to The Eagle on Friday afternoon by Don Olsen, senior minister at Plymouth Congregational Church. The church is at First and Clifton, in the College Hill neighborhood.

“The discharge was immediate, and Plymouth Learning Center notified the KDHE (Kansas Department of Health and Environment), and Wichita police investigated,” Olsen said.

One Plymouth Learning Center parent said Friday that she thinks parents whose children had contact with Gaston should have been informed of the inappropriate-touching complaint. Gaston had changed her son’s diapers, she said. “He was with my son for months.”

Knowing of the complaint would have helped parents to determine whether their children had been victims, she said. For her son’s privacy, The Eagle is not using her name.

She said she was glad that the church school did report the complaint to authorities.

“I don’t want the school to be persecuted because I think it’s a good place overall…. It’s a transparency issue.”

Olsen, the senior minister, said: “Because Gaston was not arrested and it was an ongoing investigation, we could not comment to the parents because we could be liable.”

Parents who came to the school on Friday brought bagels and pastries for the staff and said they support the school, Olsen said. “And, frankly, it got us through the day.”

Once Gaston was fired from the church school, he should not have been working in a child facility at the YMCA, the mother said.

“This sounds like a system problem,” she said, “a gross-overlook system problem.”

The Greater Wichita YMCA didn’t respond to a list of questions posed by The Eagle on Friday including the date of Gaston’s hiring and how he held a job caring for children in the Kid Zones when he had been fired by the church school after the complaint about how he touched a child.

In an email to media on Friday night, the YMCA said it was attempting to notify families whose children may have interacted with Gaston. The email from Shelly Conrady, vice president of marketing and communications at the Greater Wichita YMCA, said it was urging parents “to be aware of signs and symptoms of abuse and encouraging them to talk to their children about their experiences at the Y.”

‘Children adored him’

The mother of the young boy said she remembered that Gaston was suddenly gone from the school, without any explanation, this past fall.

“I mean, the children adored him, would go running down the halls going, ‘Mr. Caleb! Mr. Caleb!’

“He is young; he had a lot of energy to play with them.”

Her son looked forward to seeing him at school, she said. “I never received a red flag from him or anything.

A woman who answered a phone listed for Gaston’s family said, “No, thank you” and hung up Friday when an Eagle reporter called.

System’s response

On Oct. 9, KDHE received from the school the complaint about Gaston. KDHE, which regulates licensed child care facilities, looked into the complaint and concluded in late November that the allegation was not substantiated, KDHE communications director Gerald Kratochvil said Friday.

The Kid Zone that cares for children at the YMCA is not the kind of licensed child care facility regulated by KDHE, so it had no oversight of Gaston’s employment with the YMCA, Kratochvil said.

Wichita Police Capt. Doug Nolte said that the earlier case involving Gaston was investigated by the Exploited and Missing Child Unit. Investigators presented it to the District Attorney’s Office, Nolte said, “and there were no charges that came out of the case.”

Prosecutors reviewed the October allegation and decided to file no charges, District Attorney Marc Bennett confirmed Friday. After the rape allegation, prosecutors reviewed again the October allegation and decided to charge only the most recent case, Bennett said.

Gaston was employed at Plymouth Learning Center, a preschool for children four weeks to 4 years old, for several months in 2017, said Olsen, the senior minister at Plymouth Congregational. “The learning center does complete background checks through the state … and in compliance with KDHE protocol,” Olsen said in his statement. “Employment references are contacted and were done so with this individual.”

The learning center policy is that two teachers are in classrooms with children at all times, and each classroom has video cameras, Olsen said.

Asked if he had anything to say beyond the statement, Olsen added, “It’s just a sad day for everybody.”

The rape case

Earlier, the YMCA said in a statement that it is notifying families of children “who may have interacted with Mr. Gaston during his time of employment at the Y.”

The Kid Zone is an area within the Y where parents can leave their children while they exercise or take classes. It’s for children 6 weeks to 7 years old.

Records show Gaston, 21, was arrested shortly after noon on Wednesday in the 1200 block of South Topeka on suspicion of rape of a victim under the age of 14. Wichita police went to a residence after the report of a possible sexual assault involving a 4-year-old at the YMCA at 402 N. Market, Officer Charley Davidson said in a prepared statement.

The rape charge, filed Thursday, accuses Gaston of assaulting the 4-year-old on Monday. He is being held in jail on a $100,000 bond.

This story was originally published February 2, 2018 at 10:51 AM with the headline "Man charged with rape of girl at Y was fired from school after complaint."