A school bus became a prison for a young adult student who was slapped, kicked and sprayed in the face with Lysol as he was buckled into his seat.

The woman who assaulted Shiva Rai, 20, did so for at least seven days last August, but Rai, whose autism is so severe that he cannot speak, had no way to tell his family or teachers what was happening.

Monica Burke, the bus aide who abused him, was sentenced Friday to 20 months in the Boulder County jail, ordered to serve 360 hours of community service and will spend five years on probation. Burke, 52, also is banned from ever working with at-risk people, including adults and children with developmental disabilities and the elderly. In July, she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault of an at-risk person and third-degree assault.

Bus driver William E. Hall will stand trial in November on two misdemeanor counts of failure to report abuse and exploitation of an at-risk person.

Burke’s former employer, the St. Vrain Valley School District, has agreed to a $3.85 million settlement with Rai and his family. The settlement will end a U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigation into whether Burke harassed Rai, who is Nepali-American, based on his race, national origin and disability, and whether the district failed to properly respond to the harassment. The settlement also will avoid the long legal battle that would have come with a federal civil rights lawsuit.





After Friday’s sentencing hearing, attorneys for the Rai family and advocates for people with autism said they hope Burke’s punishment and the school district’s payout send a strong message to school systems across Colorado about the importance of training bus drivers and aides on how to work with students with developmental disabilities.

“We believed the system would protect people like Shiva who are helpless and bring them home to us safely,” said his sister, Laxmi.

Rai was a student at Firefly, a Denver nonprofit that serves people diagnosed with autism. He rode a school bus from the Longmont school district to Firefly’s Denver center.

On Aug. 22, 2016, a teacher at The Joshua School, another Denver school that specializes in autism, reported to the St. Vrain district’s transportation office that he had witnessed disturbing behavior from Burke toward a student on the bus.

However, the school district did not begin investigating Burke’s behavior until two days later, and video footage from the bus security camera showed Burke continued to kick and hit Rai and spray Lysol in his face during that period.

In court, prosecutors showed video clips of Burke attacking Rai. In one segment, she yelled, “Stop it! Stop it!” after kicking him twice.

In another, Burke abruptly stood, pulled Lysol from a bag and sprayed it directly in Rai’s face for several seconds.

Rai never acted aggressively toward Burke.

Rai’s mother, Kamala, gasped and sobbed as she watched the videos. Others in the courtroom, including members of Burke’s family, also cried while watching footage.

Rai’s family spoke of broken trust and guilt they experienced from allowing him onto a bus every morning where he was tortured by Burke.

“It was because of a person of no conscience — Monica Burke,” Laxmi Rai said. “Monica Burke took advantage of his condition and targeted a person who could not fight back or even tell his family he was being abused. She betrayed our trust. Only an evil person would kick, punch and torture a person like Shiva.”

Shiva Rai’s father, Vhim, described him as a gentle person who brought joy and wisdom to his family.

“He has big, nonthreatening eyes,” Vhim Rai said. “Eyes that will tell you you are safe with him.”

Although his son sometimes seems distant or apart from the world, there have been instances where he is present and shows feelings, Vhim Rai said. He recounted an occasion where his son smiled at a baby and reached out to touch its cheeks before “he walked quickly back into his autism world.”

“It confirmed our belief that he is all there on the inside,” Vhim Rai said. “That he is aware, he loves and feels on the inside.”

That led Vhim Rai to wonder how much his son suffered without being able to tell his family what was happening or to ask them to keep him off the bus, which had become a prison.

“Was he questioning in his mind why his parents were not doing anything about it?” Vhim Rai said as his daughter draped her arm around his shoulders at the witness stand.

When it was Burke’s time to speak, she apologized to Shiva Rai and his family. She blamed her actions on post-traumatic stress disorder and a deep depression that was the result of being raped as a teenager.

She did not explain why Rai was the target of her anger, and she said she took full responsibility for her actions.

“I am really hopeful that some day Shiva and his family can forgive me,” Burke said. “I am truly sorry.”

Burke’s husband and three daughters, ages 17-22, spoke on her behalf. The daughters held hands and wiped tears throughout the hearing, and they each hugged their mother before she was led away by Boulder sheriff’s deputies, who would take Burke to jail.

The Rai family, their attorneys and dozens of supporters from the Boulder and Denver autism community said they wanted good to come from the case.

Already, the St. Vrain school district has changed its policy for retaining video footage from its bus security cameras. It previously kept footage for seven days but now will keep it for several months, said Siddhartha Rathod, a Denver civil rights attorney who represents the Rai family.

That’s an important change because people like Shiva Rai, who does not speak, cannot tell others about abuse, and many students with intellectual disabilities cannot remember details that would be essential to criminal cases, Rathod said.

The district also has pledged to change its hiring and training practices for drivers, aides and others who work with students with disabilities, improve supervision of those workers and increase communication with parents of those students, according to an agreement between the school district and the education department.

The school district issued a statement Friday condemning Burke’s actions and apologizing to the family.

The case was chilling to other families who have children with autism, a developmental disability that affects about 1 of every 68 children.

“People, particularly those in positions of authority who provide services to people like Shiva, need to protect our most vulnerable citizens,” said Ken Winn, chief clinical officer at Firefly. “That didn’t happen in this case.”

Just before sentencing Burke, Boulder County District Court Judge Ingrid Bakke assured the Rai family that they had provided the best care possible to their son and none of the guilt in the case belonged to them. She said she had an optimistic outlook for Rai because of his family.

“It was a system failure,” Bakke said. “It was a huge system failure. That’s no excuse for Mrs. Burke’s behavior.”