Lengthy Republic article omits any mention of problem plagued school

Just when you think the daily is actually going to hit Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu on the real “scandal” — the word used by reporter Rebekah L. Sanders to headline the front page article, you realize it won’t happen. Readers have to wait until paragraph forty of the A 4 jump page. And then, whada’ya know? The report skirts the issue.

The article is replete with rehash about Babeu’s Mexican national former lover Jose Orozco, racy photos posted on the Internet, threats of deportation, denials of threats, admission of being homosexual, swaggering lawyereze from hired guns, and what other candidates and strategists may or may not think regarding the political pulse of now feeble Congressional candidate Babeu.

Finally comes paragraph 40. But rather than mentioning what should be Babeu’s principle campaign catastrophe, reporter Sanders gives the two-word political deal breaker short shrift and less than a mere mention. Missing from this lone paragraph are the words “DeSisto School:”

Sanders writes: Still, voters seem to understand the scandal involves more than Babeu’s sexual orientation. The sheriff admitted to posting suggestive photos of himself online and sending them to Orozco. Media reports, including stories in The Arizona Republic, have examined his time as headmaster of a financially troubled Massachusetts school that was investigated by the state for child abuse and shut down after he moved to Arizona. And Orozco last week filed a $1million notice of claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, against Babeu for causing him “mental anguish.”

Let’s cut to the chase. Babeu’s proclivities and revelations, though long rumored, were juicy attention grabbers that instantly marginalized him with the conservative East Valley voter base crucial to landing that congressional seat he so covets. But the real issue of significance that should permanently lay him low is the controversial and now defunct DeSisto School, where Babeu toiled as headmaster and pickup artist extraordinaire.

Persistent rumors of Paul Babeu’s relationships with male students were substantiated by his own sister and former students as seen in this ABC15 in-depth video report. Babeu’s older sister Lucy Babeu expressed her shock when he moved a 17-year-old former male student into his home. Babeu, 43, defended his actions, saying the young man was “his boyfriend” and he “loved him.”

The Massachusetts “therapeutic” boarding school for troubled youth had no qualified therapists on staff, but was rife with physical, emotional and sexual abuse allegations as well as fraud, falsified credentials and financial woes. While Babeu was in charge, the Office of Child Care Services in Massachusetts found the DeSisto School was unlicensed. The state’s investigation also revealed that students were made to “strip search” each other and “routinely took group showers” ..“leading to sexual abuse.”

Beginning with this February 18 post, Seeing Red AZ has written about Paul Babeu’s unsavory connections to the DeSisto School. Read more here, here and here.

The question to ask is, why is the Arizona Republic unable to squeeze the two words “DeSisto School” into a front page report linking “Babeu” and “Scandal” in the headline?

Meanwhile Babeu will be traveling to Dallas where he is receiving out-of-state fundraising assistance from a gay group, Metroplex Republicans. He has clearly found a new constituency.

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