Police: Department had to make sunshine request for accused sex offender records

APOPKA, Fla. — Apopka detectives had to make a public records request to help secure the arrest of a former teacher accused of molesting one of his students.
 
Donald Sharp, 66, was accused by a high school student of sexually assaulting her several times while she was his student in third grade at Apopka Elementary.
 
Police said the teen told them Sharp repeatedly had her sit on his lap and he would whisper in her ear, asking if she liked it.
 
Federal privacy laws require the redaction of student information from records unless law enforcement has court orders for those records.

"It's not uncommon for sometimes them to take a dozen or so years before they come forth,” Ed Chittenden, of the Apopka Police Department, said. “It's difficult for us to grasp as well. They usually start with just an allegation and sometimes there's not much evidence of it actually occurring. So it takes a lot of diligence.”

Sharp is now retired and in jail on no bond.

The police report said Sharp was investigated in 2009, and it was found that he'd had other students sit on his lap or knee throughout the year.

The report quotes his written statement, from the 2009 investigation, that students "leaned back on my knee" and "I possibly put my hand on a back as we leaned forward to look at words in the dictionary."

The report said Sharp apologized and that he was placed on paid leave for less than a month before returning to teach.

Police said they weren’t notified in 2009 about the allegations despite the policy to notify the Florida Department of Children and Families. The district said they did notify the DCF.

The DCF told Channel 9 that alone, these allegations were not considered abuse or neglect, which is why Sharp was not investigated and law enforcement was not notified.

School records show Sharp was not welcome to return to the school in 2007 or 2008 because of performance issues, but continued to teach through 2009.

WFTV