On October 28, a Middlesex Superior Court judge imposed additional restrictions on a former school van driver indicted on three felony kidnapping charges related to alleged “suspicious activity” transporting Newton Public Schools students last May.
The former driver, Justin Vose, 42, of Bedford, must now stay out of Newton unless he gets court approval to visit his defense attorney, whose office is in the city. The court imposed a curfew between 8PM and 8AM, and Vose has been ordered to have no direct or indirect contact with any witnesses, according to court documents.
On October 25, Vose paid $1,000 bail and was ordered to remain on home confinement with a GPS tracker. His defense attorney, Arthur Kelly, tried to reverse those restrictions on Monday, October 28, so his client could work, but was not successful.
Vose worked as a van driver for JSC Transportation of Waltham, a company contracted by the Newton Public Schools to transport children for the district, including preschoolers who attend special education at the Newton Early Childhood Program (NECP). The Office of the Middlesex County District Attorney (DA) announced on October 9 that Vose had been indicted by a Middlesex County grand jury on three counts of kidnapping. According to the DA’s office, NECP had reported Vose’s alleged “suspicious activity” to the Newton Police on May 28. As of this writing, the May 28 police report has not been released.
“My client is not a criminal,” said Kelly on October 25. He said Vose has lost two jobs, including the one at JSC Transportation, following the May 28 report.
Mysterious disappearances
Police were told by NECP about the alleged suspicious behavior on May 28, after a student was dropped off late at daycare, according to the DA.
JSC Transportation checked Vose’s location and “it allegedly revealed that the defendant [Vose] entered the parking lot but instead of dropping the child off the defendant drove to a secluded portion of the parking lot near the tree line,” according to the DA.
“An investigation revealed that, on multiple occasions, the defendant had transported three victims, between ages 3 and 5 years old, to secluded areas and turned off the audio and video recording in his bus for up to 20 minutes at a time,” the DA said.
The school district, students’ parents, daycare, and bus company never officially authorized Vose’s route change or his one-on-one time with the victims, according to the DA. A search of Vose’s phone also revealed that he had taken photos with the victims, the DA said.
Newton Public Schools response
In a press release sent out on October 18, the Newton Public Schools said, “JSC vans have a camera filming while a ride is occurring, and the camera remains on while the van is on. After the van is turned off, the cameras run for an additional 15-minutes. Real-time GPS and student-ride time tracking are on at all times, even when the vehicle is off. Last year, the cameras were not set to be running upon the shut-off of the vehicle. We insisted on this change last spring, and JSC immediately made this change without hesitation.”
Acknowledging that “past handling of complaints has further eroded parent confidence,” Superintendent Anna Nolin said that as of the week of October 18, the schools have “designed and implemented a system at JSC in which complaints will be shared with NPS on an immediate basis as concerns are lodged and are placed in driver files for documentation purposes.”
Nolin said that the district cannot answer questions about the scope of the DA/police investigation, because school officials have “limited access to information.”
Addressing how the district shared news about the incidents, Nolin said that the schools “notified the impacted families whose routes fit the now discovered break in protocol because that is all the evidence we had in May and have presently. In the absence of confirmation about the indicted driver’s conduct, we could not in May, and cannot now, simply put an all-call out to anyone who had ever had contact with or was driven by the driver to find additional issues.”
Saying the schools do not know the identities of the victims, Nolin stated that, “It is our hope that, when possible, the DA can provide community meetings to update families whose child may have been transported by this driver or for a family who was directly affected by this driver’s actions. Law enforcement are the only parties who can explain more about this investigation, its scope and execution.”
She encouraged anyone who has other concerns about potential criminal behavior by Vose or other drivers to contact the Newton Police.
The next meeting on the case is a scheduling conference that will take place on November 13.