FORMAL CHARGES: Court Document (PDF file)
SCHOOL REPORT: Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 (all PDF files)
REPORT: Garrett Arrest Report (PDF file)
LETTER: Teachers' Union Responds To Complaint (PDF)

SANFORD, Fla. -- The two trials of a former Seminole County teacher accused of abusing autistic children will stay in Seminole County, a move Kathy Garrett's attorney said could prevent her from getting a fair trial.

Garrett was removed from her job as a special needs teacher in Seminole County. Her attorney said her case received too much publicity. Friday, a judge disagreed.

The judge in the case found no reason to move the case out of Seminole County, even though Garrett's attorney tried to paint local media coverage as biased and sensational.

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Garrett maintained her silence after her attorney failed in a bid to have her trial moved to another county. Attorney Tom Egan argued that media coverage had tainted a potential jury pool in Seminole County.

"Maybe the entire community feels like she's guilty. But if they feel that way, it's because of this coverage," Egan said.

The defense paid a UCF professor $150 an hour to review dozens of stories. He told the judge he thought many stories were one-sided, but that the amount of coverage seemed warranted.

"It appeared to me as blanket coverage, and rightfully so. This complies with probably one of the more newsworthy stories. In the competitive market, this rises to the top," said Eugene Costain.

But while the expert witness claimed to be an avid watcher of news, he told prosecutors he had only vague knowledge of the case before being hired to review the news coverage.

In the end, Judge Kenneth Lester denied the motion to change venue.

Even so, prosecutors were not convinced that a jury could be seated in Seminole County.

"I don't know what the public out there has been watching in terms of the news, so I won't know until we actually start picking a jury," said prosecutor Donna Scott.

One of Garrett's attorney's complaints was the media repeating that investigators considered what happened in her classroom torture. But then Egan proceeded to use that word more than a dozen times to describe the allegations.

There was no indication when the child abuse trial might actually begin.

Several months ago, the judge in the case separated the child abuse trials into two separate trials based on the school years when they happened. There are also at least three pending federal lawsuits against Garrett and the Seminole County School Board concerning the way school officials handled nearly a decade of allegations against Garrett.