In July, former Jefferson County Public Schools football coaches and educators Ronnie and Donnie Stoner were indicted on more than 50 charges related to child sexual abuse.
When news broke of the indictment, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting had already spent more than a year finding and speaking with alleged survivors and pinpointing the failures by the city’s public and private schools, police and state social workers that allowed alleged abuse of vulnerable girls to continue for nearly two decades.
You can listen to the four-part series at Kydig.org, or anywhere you get podcasts.
Here are the major takeaways:
Six women told KyCIR that they had been sexually abused as girls by Ronnie Stoner, or his twin brother Donnie Stoner. Both brothers deny all allegations. The earliest allegation comes from Alexis Crook, a Louisville woman who said both brothers abused her when they were her football coaches at Evangel Christian School in 2005. Crook said adults at Evangel knew about the alleged abuse, but did not report it to police or Child Protective Services. Evangel Superintendent Roger Hoagland denies he knew anything about it. Evangel World Prayer Center head pastor Bob Rogers did not respond to our interview requests. The brothers went on to work for JCPS.
Several girls reported Ronnie Stoner for inappropriate behavior or abuse, but JCPS kept him on staff. JCPS records show 15-year-old Lady Moore told her assistant principal that Ronnie attempted to sexually abuse her in the hallway of Fern Creek High School in 2014. CPS records show another girl,13-year-old Catrina Probus Cooper, told her Newburg Middle School administrator that Ronnie was “making her uncomfortable” in 2018. More school district records show Alyssa Foster reported Ronnie in 2022 for allegedly sexually abusing her years earlier when she was 13-years-old at Newburg. In 2021, Ronnie’s daughter, Araylle Stoner, went to police saying he had been sexually abusing her from the age of 11. Each case sparked an inquiry, but investigators failed to substantiate the girls’ allegations. Ronnie kept his position and avoided criminal charges.
Gaps in reporting requirements allowed Ronnie to evade further scrutiny. State law and JCPS policy allow principals discretion when deciding whether to alert district officials about potential sexual misconduct by school staff. It appears Ronnie’s principal, Nicole Adell, decided not to tell higher-ups about Catrina Probus Cooper’s allegations in 2018, leaving no record in his file of the complaint and making it easier for Ronnie to be hired into other positions.
There is also no clear regulation or law that requires CPS or police to alert districts if they are investigating school employees for child sex abuse. This allowed Ronnie to keep his job working with vulnerable teens at the same time that police were investigating him for sexually abusing his own teenage daughter in 2021 and 2022.
The Louisville Metro Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit and CPS didn’t follow best practices. Jerri Sites, an expert who reviewed the LMPD and CPS investigation into Ronnie Stoner’s alleged abuse of his daughter, had many concerns with how the case was handled. She said it took far too long to get Aryalle in for her forensic interview and noted that investigators quickly closed the case when Aryalle’s family pressured her to take back her allegations. Best practice, according to many experts, is to investigate further when kids recant their allegations to make sure children aren’t being pressured. Sites said forensic interviews should ideally happen within 24 hours of a child’s allegation. But, a KyCIR review of 100 child sex abuse cases closed by LMPD shows the average time it took to get a child in for a forensic interview was 39 days, leaving weeks for abusers to destroy evidence and pressure kids to recant. That same review showed detectives rarely collected evidence, levied charges or made arrests.
The women's allegations are part of a larger nationwide problem of child sex abuse in schools. A recent study suggests 12% of students will experience sexual misconduct by an educator over the course of their K-12 education. Most students surveyed in the study reported non-contact misconduct, like sexual comments, innuendo, one-on-one attention or gift-giving. About 1% reported more serious forms of misconduct like kissing, groping or sexual acts.
Elizabeth Jeglic, professor and clinical psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said districts should be tracking lower-level boundary violations — early “grooming” behaviors — in school employees’ personnel files and address them before they escalate to more serious sexual abuse. Districts should also be providing robust in-person training in recognizing potential educator sexual misconduct and how to report it, she said. In Louisville, that doesn’t happen.
