Posted at: 10/04/2009 7:46 PM | WHEC.com
Updated at: 10/04/2009 8:54 PM
By: Linzi Sheldon

Community shows support for Victor teacher charged with sexual abuse

About a hundred friends and former students of a suspended Victor High School teacher rallied behind him Sunday afternoon.

Supporters signed a petition for prosecutors to drop the charges against Ronald Bartlett.

"I'm here today because this is an innocent man's life being stripped away from him unjustly," former student Danielle Taylor said.

Bartlett, a suspended art teacher, is accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old female student at Victor High School.

But supporters say he's been wrongly accused despite new court documents claiming he confessed.

"What would it look like if an innocent man were charged with what is really one of the most socially unacceptable crimes...what would it look like?" Michael Lacagnina, Bartlett's brother-in-law said, motioning to the dozens of people who gathered at Dryden Road Park. "It would look like this."

Bartlett has been suspended from his teaching job since June. It's a move that shocked students like senior Andy Fleckenstein.

"I was just in disbelief because knowing him as well as I did, it just didn't seem like anything he would even be possible of doing," Fleckenstein said.

"We believe in him," Taylor said. "We support him. And you know, we just know this is wrong, this is unjust."

They put on their t-shirts and signed their names on a petition to demand that the charges be dropped.

"It's hard," Victor High School senior Brandi Squier said. "It's just because we know that it's not true at all."

Even recent documents filed with Ontario County court didn't sway their belief.

Papers filed by the prosecution say Bartlett admitted to touching a student inappropriately.

The papers say Bartlett put his hand on a student's thigh and later apologized for his behavior. The documents also cite text messages Bartlett allegedly sent to another teacher, saying about the incident, "I never thought i would ever be capable of doing."

Students say it's hearsay and they don't believe it.

"I'm not really interested in the fight of everything," Taylor said. "I just know...that this is silly. It's ridiculous and I know that for a fact. I have no gray area and I have no in-between. Ron is a man that I respect fervently and without limits."