Former students remember Paone as 'creepy'

The Rev. Ernest C. Paone was implicated last week in the "40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury Report 1 Interim – Redacted," alleging decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by Roman Catholic Church officials across the state of Pennsylvania.

For many students who attended James E. Potter Junior High School in the 1970s and 80s, the name Paone rang a bell.

Paone, they said, is the same man who taught social studies and other subjects at Potter for almost 20 years.

When news broke about Paone's ties to the grand jury report, several former students spoke out about their interactions with the teacher.

Pierre Domercq, who graduated from Potter in 1982, recalled his only interaction with Paone during his time at the junior high school.

Domercq said Paone's reputation around campus at the time was clear.

"He was creepy," he said. "When he looked at you, it made your skin crawl."

Domercq recalled one incident that stood out to him, and once he told his parents the story, they removed him from Paone's class.

"He would put a chair at the front of the room facing the class, then he would stand directly behind the chair with his crotch just above the back of the chair and rub his crotch against the backrest as he would look at his targets," Domercq said. "It was the creepiest most disgusting thing I have ever seen any teacher do."

Bret Wills, who moved with his family from Palo Alto to Fallbrook, posted on a Fallbrook High School alumni page, "He was without a doubt, a sexual predator."

During a phone interview, Wills, who attended Potter in 1972-1973, explained his experiences with Paone.

"He definitely set his sights on me, like right off the bat in school," Wills said. "From the first day of school, he started giving me special attention. He treated me much differently than a lot of the other kids.

"At first, I was, 'Oh this is cool, who doesn't want special attention?' But then it got more and more clear to me what he was doing. He was leering at me all the time. One day, he called out to me and said, 'You're decadent, Mr. Wills.'"

Wills said that Paone talked to him during that same school year about taking him on a trip to Mexico.

"He said he did that every year with special boys," he said. "He said he did work with kids in Mexico and it was part of his religious thing."

Paone, he said, wanted to meet with him after class.

"I remember standing in front of his desk and him staring at me," Wills said. "He kept talking about how he was going to take me on this trip 'deep into the heart of Mexico,' and he kept repeating it just like that."

He said Paone went on explaining how to convince his parents to let him go on the trip.

"He said he had a systematic approach on how to deal with parents and how I could convince my parents to trust me and him," Wills said. "He said I should first bring the idea up casually, then more and more, until finally telling my parents about this trip that he was planning. He said the trip would be over the entire summer."

It was at that point that Wills said, even as a seventh-grader, he knew it wasn't a good idea.

"The way he said that I knew it wasn't good," Wills said. "So, I pulled way back, and in fact, I was kind of nasty to him. Everyone liked to mock him by calling him 'Ernie,' and I even did it to his face.

"I was more abusive further on, but still he tried to woo me back. It seemed like the nastier I was to him, the more he seemed to enjoy it."

Eventually, Wills said, Paone backed off.

"All these years later, I actually wonder if he took other boys on that trip," he said. "He wanted sex – I just knew even at that age – from all the other things he said in class, you just knew."

Wills said his older sister had Paone for speech and maybe Spanish and had stories to tell about Paone's behavior, though he didn't want to elaborate. His younger sister, he said, was removed from Paone's classroom by his parents very soon after they learned that he was her teacher.

"That was strange because I hadn't told my parents my story at that point," Wills said. "It is just a sad thing that (Paone) touched so many lives in some way or another. Because I have no doubt that he would have done something to me in some way had it continued."

On social media forums, former students of varying ages and sex told stories of verbal and even physical abuse at the hands of Paone.

Bill Billingsley, assistant superintendent of human resources for Fallbrook Union Elementary School District, confirmed Monday, Aug. 20, that Paone was employed by the district from September 1967 through June 1986. The district has not commented on the allegations.

"I know that at least my parents had to have complained about him," Wills said.

"Why did the administration allow him to stay?" Domercq said. "That couldn't have been the first sign."