Data: Hector Manley's survivor count is Florida's second-highest in recent history

Dan Glaun, Naples Daily News
·2 min read
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Hector Manley

Former Collier County elementary school teacher Hector Manley is one of Florida's most prolific abusers of students in recent history, according to data from the anti-abuse nonprofit Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct and Exploitation, or S.E.S.A.M.E.

In January, Manley pleaded no contest to 20 charges of molesting students between the ages of 5 and 12. The state attorney's office would not clarify if the 20 charges amounted to one count per child. Criminal court documents previously had listed 21 charges against Manley.

His is the second-highest survivor count since S.E.S.A.M.E. in 2014 began tracking cases of sexual misconduct by Florida educators, according to an analysis of the data by the Naples Daily News / The News-Press.

The highest was Matthew Graziotti, a former summer camp director, youth pastor and teacher at Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona. He was sentenced in 2015 to 210 years in prison for abusing 29 children under the age of 12.

Of the top five Florida cases by survivor count, three involved abuse of elementary-age children.

The analysis found that most of the 273 cases of abuse listed a single survivor; 7.7% listed three or more. The number of alleged survivors is likely an undercount because S.E.S.A.M.E. tracks cases through news reports. Cases where additional abuse allegations are uncovered after an initial arrest may not be reflected in the totals.

The full dataset included 334 cases of educator abuse. This news organization’s analysis excluded child pornography cases that did not involve any children personally known to the defendant, as well as cases of voyeurism that did not involve individual contact with students. In one such case, a high school teacher in Hillsborough County was sentenced to 15 years in prison for recording 124 students by hiding cameras and cell phones in school changing rooms.

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Manley's crimes gave Collier County Public Schools one of the highest abuse totals in the dataset. Collier had 27 abuse survivors, second to Miami Dade's 35, excluding voyeurism cases. With voyeurism included, Collier was third, with Hillsborough's 141 survivors by far the highest number in the state.

Criminal justice investigative reporter Dan Glaun can be reached at daniel.glaun@naplesnews.com or on Twitter @dglaun.

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This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Hector Manley educator sex abuse second highest survivor count in Florida