According to multiple sources, including a classmate, Ashley was 17 and still a student when her affair with Vianes began.
A source close to Ashley’s family said her parents had complained to the school’s principal in 2012 that the sergeant was spending too much time with their daughter. The source told the Weekly that the principal explained that it was necessary that the two spend time together because Ashley was so involved in the school’s ROTC program.
Since the parents didn’t make a formal complaint, their concerns never made it to the district administration to be investigated. By the time officials learned of the relationship, Vianes was gone.
District spokesman Clint Bond called the issue a “personnel matter” and declined comment.
Jacinto Ramos, the school board trustee who represents the Diamond Hill-Jarvis area, wouldn’t comment either. He told the Weekly he did look into the district’s hiring practices for ROTC instructors.
Those instructors, he said, must have at least 20 years of military service. After being hired, Ramos said, they receive 12 hours of training annually, including an online ethics course and an additional six hours of training delivered by the staff of the district’s ROTC program, “dealing with ethics, relationships, sexual harassment, prevention of sexual harassment, and how to intervene with peers if there are suspicions of anything that is improper.”
For the whole length of Vianes’ relationship with Ashley, until he left Fort Worth, he was still seeing Stephanie and still living with his wife. The texts that Stephanie found on Vianes’ phone began in 2012, when Ashley was a 17-year-old senior and one of Vianes’ ROTC students.
In many of the texts, the two referred to their past sexual encounters. In tamer exchanges, they wrote about missing each other:
“Yes baby I want u [sic],” the student wrote.
“I’m sorry baby and I want u [sic] real bad,” Vianes responded.
In the final message, Vianes apologized for not immediately messaging his student back, because he was working on her college recommendation letter.
“Sorry baby I was finishing up ur [sic] recommendation letter online it is due today,” he wrote. “Yes we’re alike baby we wait until the last possible moment but it’s a awesome one baby.”
According to Vianes’ arrest warrant, the two exchanged more than 24,000 text messages between March 2012 and February 2013.
Stephanie, furious, confronted Vianes about the messages. He didn’t deny the relationship.
“He got on his knees and apologized,” said Stephanie. And, she said, Vianes swore never to see Ashley again.
Stephanie said she was gullible enough to forgive Vianes and continued to see him for another year or so after that. But she didn’t entirely trust him. She took screen shots of the time-stamped messages, which she later turned over to the police.
********
On Jan. 11 of this year, according to the arrest warrant, Vianes’ wife found a receipt for a hotel room in her husband’s pants pocket. When she questioned him about it, he was evasive and told her he had to go in to work, even though it was a Saturday.
After he left, his wife went to Diamond Hill-Jarvis, but Vianes wasn’t there. She found him at the hotel room the receipt had been for, with Ashley.
Three days later, he resigned his ROTC job.
Stephanie said it was then Vianes sent her a cryptic message saying he was headed north to start a new life. She said she knew intuitively that it meant he was back with Ashley.
Upset, Stephanie went to Vianes’ house and confronted his wife. Stephanie told her about her own affair with Vianes and about the texts. She said that Vianes’ wife initially didn’t believe that her husband would have slept with someone who was still his student.
Stephanie then tried to contact Ashley’s parents. Their phone had been disconnected, so she found their address and confronted them in person.
She said Ashley’s parents were shocked but told her about their own renewed suspicions: Ashley had left hurriedly, allegedly for Huntsville, where she had told her parents she’d been accepted to Sam Houston State University. Her parents had planned to take her there, but she had left on her own a day early.
Stephanie had already spoken to Ashley’s sister and cousin. She said she told the couple, “Your daughter never got accepted to that school.”
Now scared for their child’s safety, Ashley’s parents filed a missing-persons report. A source said the couple also went to the school principal and complained. The principal apologized to them for not taking their earlier concerns more seriously.
The source said the parents also confronted Richard Crossley, Vianes’ commanding officer in the district’s ROTC hierarchy, who encouraged them to pursue legal action.
On Feb. 7, San Antonio police arrested Vianes at his cousin’s house. Ashley was with him. He was released on bond the next day, allowed to remain in that city, where he has family. No date has been set for his trial.
********
The current Diamond Hill-Jarvis student quoted at the beginning of this story said that before Vianes left town, she too had been developing a close relationship with “Sarge,” but it never became inappropriate. She found out about his sexual misconduct through rumors. She is 17.
“We were close,” she said. “He was like a father to me.” Toward the end, shortly before Vianes left town, “he started pushing me away. He made me feel like I was doing something wrong.
“Once I heard the truth, it all made sense,” she said.
She said she just wants the truth about Vianes to come out. “I feel bad that people are feeling sorry for him when I know what he’s doing.”
Excellent story Eric. I though twice before commenting since so many lives have been hurt by this. This is FWISD under Walter Dansby. Not only the violation and betrayal, but the cover-up!. You didn’t read about this in the Star Telegram. Why is this Principal still employed? Why was the Principal removed at Poly? Why did Dansby bring in a retired crony to take his place? School Board: We need change.
Teacher,
Wow, I do not know what FWISD has done to you personally but you seem to have some serious issues. I am not per-say a buddy of the administration but I also know that all the things that you are complaining about does not affect you or your students in your class and the last time I looked at my contract it was for a teaching position. The bottom line here is this; you need to worry more about your students and less about the job of the administration. By the way I noticed that you are posting at 11:55 shouldn’t you be teaching a class? You also asked why was the principal not fired, that is dumb statement. The principal had nothing to do with this situation.
Maybe if you spent more time working on your lesson plans and preparing for the student’s you would spend less time worrying about things that you cannot change by complaining.
Wow, I don’t know what “Teacher” has done to you, but you seem to have some serious issues too.
He was my mentore but, now sarge is nothing. What is done is done we cant believe what he did, i started putting the peices together and realized it was a missunderstanding but it turned out to be true. If you se this Sarge i no longer look up to you.
learn how to spell
then judge!
learn how to spell then judge!
Learn how to post AND then judge!
@Rex: Funny how you rag on “Teacher” for posting during the day, yet you, also a teacher, posted at 1:58! Glass houses Rex! You don’t know if this teacher is still employed, retired, had to quit or whatever else may be the reason. “Bottom line” for you, is that Dansby has failed this district in more ways than one, starting with allowing over a million dollars spent on one lawsuit, with more coming down the pike! It DOES affect students, when $ is spent on legal fees,when it should be budgeted to help schools in need, or utilized to give employees raises! What bothers me is that it doesn’t bother YOU! Our district has been saying over and over that we have a budget shortfall, yet the board has the audacity to entertain giving Dansby a bonus and extend his contract for increasing the number of failing schools???????? Wow is right “Rex”! But, your entitled to your own opinion.
As far as the principal goes, she should be held accountable for her failure to investigate the matter further, when the parents came to her with their concerns. You don’t say, “that it was necessary that the two spend time together because Ashley was so involved in the school’s ROTC program.” If the principal did say this, it sounds like she didn’t want to take the time to investigate the matter further and she has a different idea of what “mentoring” really is! However, the blame shouldn’t solely be on the principal, but also the parents, who should’ve insisted, by taking the matter to central office, if they didn’t feel comfortable with the answers they received. The parents should’ve also pressed the matter with their daughter, if they felt uneasy with how much time she was spending with this man. Sorry, but the child was still a minor and the parents had every right to monitor their child’s activities.Better yet, they have the right to request a parent conference with the Sergeant and an administrator. Many viable solutions, but apparently, not a whole lot was done until it was too late.
this guy is the worst kind of pedophile who fills the heads of children with dreams and promises, only to prey on their vulnerability. I hope when he goes to prison, he will remember these children, because the hard core criminals will make him remember over and over again as they beat and rape him. Pedophiles are the scum of the prison system and that is an insult to scum!
this does not make him pedaphile!! the girl most certainly knew what she had gotten herself into. what he does in his personal life is his own business not anyone else. no one is to judge him i bet everyone has done worse and no one says anything. bunch of trash talkers!!
If you’re going to insult someone by calling them a “Hoe” learn the difference between “Hoe” and “Ho”. One is a garden tool and the other is what Santa says at Christmas!
Your immaturity shows in your use of vulgar language. I am glad you are still in school. So you worry about getting your education and adding intelligent words to your vocabulary. Let the adults worry about what should and will be done with this offender.
Clearly a lack of leadership has occurred by both school and district officials. However the issue of the newsletter was the offense committed by the instructor and not how much money is being paid or spent around the district. Let’s committ to seeing that this offender is proper punished and what needs to be done to ensure it does not happen again. Then we can attack the other issues the exist in the district. Just my opinion.
Yes folks, this is what our tax dollars pay for and what we have to put up with in our schools on a daily basis! These bad mouthed, short fused, illiterate, trash talking morons, who can’t speak, yet alone write, a grammatically correct sentence without dropping the F bomb or using the N word! All this does is makes you sound like a piece of brown trash!!! Maybe you are comfortable expressing yourself like this, but please get off this comment section, before you lower our IQ’s dramatically!
Let me guess, Pimp, his “youngin” used to be your girlfriend? How old are you, 80 to be calling the girls “youngins”? His wife is the innocent party here, so why are you dissing her? Oh I see, you’re mad because her husband was banging your girlfriend! Touché (and no, that is not misspelled).
This man is indeed a pedophile, please if any other girls are victims of this guy, please speak up, Its only a matter of time before he choses his next victim.
This is FWISD under Walter Dansby. Note how articulate our children are? You have work to do if you are REALLY serious about improving our schools. Stop the needless delay and the needless expense on senseless litigation. Get rid of this guy and clean house.
Frustrated
First let me set you straight about the time I posted. Yes, it was at 1:58 right after my Chemo treatment and before I left to go home, I am on a medical leave.
Next, please do not judge a principal about what you heard they did. Please let us only discuss what you know. I know that there is a young woman that is still at this school and yes, this man should be placed in jail for what he did. I also know that there is another young woman that he was also involved with that just graduated and is now attending college. I also know that this man has ruined the lives of many people because of his actions. However, I fail to see how this man’s actions have anything to do with the current administration downtown. I have read each post that you haters are posting about anything that happens in this district good or bad. I am surprised that you are not blaming them for the current drought. Did you also blame Johnson for everything that went bad?
If you naysayers would like a new superintendent then please petition the school board and recommend someone new. My old granny used to say it is better to deal with the devil you know then the one you don’t. If you feel that passionate about a cause that really seems to be bothering you and the person calling themselves “Teacher” then step out from behind the false facade and pseudo names and use your real names. A precedent has already been established about speaking against the administration, heck maybe you too can get 2.4 million.
Then you are a fool with blinders on and no school age children,
Hey Rex, sorry about your cancer. It sounds like you’ve been a teacher. Do teachers get a lunch break? If so, when do such breaks occur? And are teachers allowed to read , post opinions, and exercise other freedoms while on their break time? Or is FWISD operated differently from other school districts in America?
The principal of the school where professional, moral, and criminal misconduct occured under their watch and with their knowledge should be held accountable.
Hey Red, how come you don’t follow your own advice and post under your own full name, with other information to verify who you’re really say you are? I find it very troubling that you don’t seem concerned about the many facts that have been reported in this publication and court records showing the conducts of this school district’s leadership that can be described generally as mediocre, if not incompetent, and as consistently damaging to the children when the Board spend so much time, energy, and taxpayer money to promote, reward, and protect administrators whose incompetence and/or lack of moral compass has allowed unprofessional, unethical, and even criminal conducts to be accepted as practically common place.
And you seem to be perfectly okay with retaliations and discriminations against teachers and other staff speaking out when they see misconducts and other inappropriate or unacceptable actions that hurt students or violate their legal rights and deny them a chance at a decent education because according to you such individuals could always roll the dice with their livelihood and professional career by spending years fighting a well-funded school district in court to vindicate their claims, reclaim their good names, and if persistent enough and fortunate enough to find competent legal representation, to get just financial compensation for the loss to their family’s livelihood and the unwarranted pain and suffering that these immoral and vindictive Board members and administrators had chosen to inflict on the professionals who dared take a stand for the best interest of the students entrusted to the district’s care and for the interests of the taxpayers in the communities that financially support the school district.
Would you want to have to go through what this vice principal and his family had to endure over the past four years? Battling cancer, or a number of serious illnesses, is probably more difficult than enduring a smear campaign, financial struggles, and shenanigans using the legal system (with tax dollars) BUT unlike cancer and other serious illnesses, the pain and struggles WERE THE DIRECT RESULT OF ACTING IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS AND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Is this the professional or educational culture that you’d be proud to be a part of?
What I’ve learned from observing the recent history of the administration of FWISD is that if I have iffy professional skills, iffy academic abilities, and shady character traits, I would do just fine in FWISD because the culture there not only tolerates but protects principals who like to pinch young boys’ nipples and photograph them shirtless, principals and other administrators who defraud the state/taxpayers, cheat, lie, intimidate, discriminate, obfuscate, bully, etc. The children certainly are learning a lot about the Fort Worth Way, if not about things that make for a good education that prepare them for a good life and productive future.
Rex: Cancer sucks…sorry for your struggles, but I agree with Bubba. Every school is a seed from a much bigger pod! The chief complaint is that this district continues to hide things from the public, by not allowing the news media to do its job…report news! This happened in January and it took The Weekly and ONLY the Weekly, to report it. So much more that should be reported and isn’t!!! Reporting on this story, might have prevented further heartache. Yes, the district is VERY responsible to report it and the principal even MORE responsible to investigate it.
just stop
Seems like every other day lately I am reading some recent article about a public schoolteacher having a sexual affair with a student. What the hell is going on? Can’t these people keep it in their pants? Geez! What is going on in our society these days that would motivate public schoolteachers to engage in sexual relations with underage students? What a bunch of reprobates! Maybe teachers need to be much better screened before they are hired.
Looks like the Startlegram once again thinks it is breaking new news…….:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/06/24/5925569/ex-rotc-instructor-accused-of.html
Reading this all over again after the weekly published it makes me wonder there is more to the story. I knew this man and I’m still pretty shock i still want to believe its all a lie. Many of us were close to him and makes you wonder if his intentions of helping us were real or not. Even if it hurt to see someone you cared for go to jail i hope the law of Texas does punish him with jail. Reason being so he can have time to think on what he has done to these two girls. Yes, the girls knew better but so did he, the adult in this case was him and a lot of people incluiding myself trusted him. Good Luck to Sgt Vianes. Thank you for letting us down