Original subtitles

[cheers and applause]

[dramatic music]

- You know, my senior year,

I wanted to go to college for acting.

In my mind, I wanted to start a theater company

and, like, make films,

and I kind of wanted to do the whole thing.

[cheering, person speaking indistinctly]

He was like, "Why don't you go to the University of Utah?

"Like, they have a great acting program.

I'm gonna be moving there."

[students cheering]

♪ ♪

Look at my teeth.

[chuckles] I got my braces off!

So I did,

and I moved to Utah and went to school there.

I should get my own video camera

and film stuff in Utah like my teeth.

And I moved into the basement with him and his wife.

♪ ♪

Both my parents were kind of worried about me

going somewhere out of state...

but then when I told them that, like,

"I don't need to live in the dorms,

"I can live, you know, in the basement

of the theater teacher,"

I think that made them feel

like I would at least be around some people that were familiar.

He had successfully groomed me

to the point where I didn't have anybody anymore.

I was isolated and alone,

and I felt like I owed it to him

to at least show up and give the relationship a try,

and that kind of meant without conditions.

♪ ♪

The basement was cold and dark,

and it was like a prison.

It felt like I was somebody's captive

in a way.

There was just, like, a little kind of slit of a window

at the very top.

Otherwise, it was pretty dark.

And it was right across from his office,

where he spent most of his time.

That was the first time that I had sex.

♪ ♪

I didn't have any friends who were able to say,

"This is weird, Cheryl.

This is weird. This is not normal."

♪ ♪

I've been a little crazy lately.

The teacher is getting frustrated with me a lot.

Honestly, sometimes I feel unwanted

or like I couldn't go to him for anything

because I'd be bothering him.

I can't see past what my brain is telling me,

even though I know in my heart that he loves me.

♪ ♪

I had been struggling

with how to talk about this for a long time.

We stayed together until I was 22.

And so the grooming led to this,

what some people would say,

was, like, a consensual relationship.

And so I think that was part of what was so hard for me

coming forward, which was like...

- Yeah. - I had a part in it.

And there was a lot of judgment that came my way

and still comes my way, you know.

- Yes.

Because that's the nature of it--the shame.

A lot of these guys, they know exactly what they're doing,

and they want to make you feel like, you know,

"Oh, I was a willing party,"

you know, you know how you said that,

but the whole goal was for it to get to that point.

And oftentimes that's why you do see people

that are serial offenders.

Your average child sex offender has about nine victims.

But, you know, what's really interesting is that many times

it's not just the survivor that's been groomed.

It's also those around the survivor--

the family, the caregivers,

the other people entrusted to that youth, to that child.

There's a lot more education that needs to be around it,

and so, you know, it's really pulling everyone together

in on this conversation. - Yeah.

♪ ♪

I don't know when his wife

found the messages.

All I know is, by the time the year ended,

she presented...

him with this book

of all of the messages

that he and I had exchanged

all through high school,

and she threw it at him and left.

♪ ♪

After he got a divorce,

he was still teaching high school.

There was a point where he came home

to the apartment that we shared and said,

"I've been fired for having what the principal called

"an inappropriate email relationship with a student.

"Nothing was happening. It's a big misunderstanding."

And I believed him.

I didn't think that he would be dumb enough

to get involved with another student.

I still felt like I was special...

and I believed that it was the exception

because I knew somewhere deep down

that it was not okay, that I was not okay.

♪ ♪

There were many moments in college where...

the crack started to appear.

Once I moved to L. A.

and we were no longer together,

I started really seeing

that this thing might not have been okay.

The real turning point was...

a friend of mine

from Little Elm...

called me.

As we were talking,

I made the decision to be honest

about my relationship with him for the first time.

And so I said to them,

"I want to tell you something that I've never told anybody,

"and it has to do with him.

"I was in...

"a relationship with him,

"and it started when I was in high school.

It started when I was 16."

And they said, "Me too."

♪ ♪

And... [sighs]

♪ ♪

[inhales sharply]

Sorry.

[sighs]

♪ ♪

I think that was the first time

that I was able to actually see myself...

As a kid.

[videotape rewinding]

[indistinct chatter]

Everything came into question.

[tape rewinding]

And suddenly I realized, like,

"He wasn't just doing this to me.

"He was doing this to me,

and he was doing this to someone else."

And then I remembered that when we were together,

he was fired,

which then I was like, "Jesus Christ, Cheryl."

And it was like I suddenly became an adult.

♪ ♪

He's gotten just to go on with his life,

and I have had to do the hard work

of rewriting myself.

I mean, that was my entire adolescence.

In those years, those were my formative years,

and they're gone.

I'll never get them back.

[sniffles]

- Remember how we were looking for, like, recent cases?

- Uh-huh.

- This young woman, Heaven,

back in 2016...

she came forward about her teacher.

This news clip says that the state

is filing criminal charges against him

but the case has been pushed and pushed and pushed.

- Another delay in the case of a former teacher

accused of having sex with an underage student.

Jason Meyers was arrested more than five years ago,

but he has not faced a jury yet.

- The entire world has to blow up

if a person comes forward to talk about it.

- Mm-hmm. - Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, it's crazy.

- Yeah, but the crazy thing about this story

is that her teacher, this guy Jason Meyers--

multiple people have alleged

that Jason Meyers has done this.

- Yeah, I mean, I'm curious,

like, why the trial's being held up.

- Mm-hmm. - It's now set for July.

- Yeah. - Is it gonna happen?

- I don't know.

I mean, we should try and get in contact with her.

- [chuckles] Hi, can you hear me?

- Yeah, I can.

Crazy meeting this way. - I know.

How are you feeling?

- A little overwhelmed.

[both laugh]

It's one of those days.

- I'm very interested to hear about your experience

moving through the legal system.

What made you decide to press charges,

or, like, what made you decide to do this?

- Yeah, I didn't really have

much of an option.

Since I was 17,

I'm pretty sure my parents made that decision.

I just remember

being called in to talk with the police

and then finding out, like, the next day

that he had been arrested that night.

- Was there a point where it transferred

from being maybe your parents' choice

to your choice?

- Definitely.

I felt like I had lost a lot,

like I'd lost...

a normal experience in high school.

I'd lost a lot of my friends,

and hearing the defense attorneys

talk about me on the news

like I was making it all up

or pursuing this for the wrong reasons,

I was just like, "No.

"You're not gonna be the only one to have a say

"in how this goes.

"And you're not gonna be the one to dictate,

"like, how I get closure from this,

how I'm able to move on from it."

And if I dropped the charges,

I thought that he might go back to teaching.

At one point, I was like, "Okay, I'm in this.

"Like, it's been my life

and I'm just gonna take it as far as I can."

It's kind of where I am now, I guess.

- I have so many similar things.

- Yeah. Yeah. - Yeah.

- Let's find a time to meet,

and let's do it, if that works for you.

- Okay. Yeah, I'd love to. - Okay.

I can't wait to meet you face-to-face.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[vehicle doors opening] - All right, Golda.

♪ ♪

- Good boy.

- You got him? - Yeah.

- All right.

♪ ♪

- Factory part two. - Yeah.

- [clicks tongue]

- I feel like I'm out of options.

I feel like...

I don't know how to make people listen...

and this is...

scary and vulnerable...

and I'm happy to do it.

- Watch your step.

[clicks tongue]

- When I was 17,

I was abused by my English teacher,

Jason Meyers.

Criminal charges were filed against Jason Meyers

in 2016.

We have not gone to trial,

and really the defense strategy has been

to kick the can down the road

until I give up...

because if I don't show...

The state doesn't have a case.

♪ ♪

Lived in Miami my whole life before going to college.

I grew up in Cutler Bay.

It's a working-class town in Miami.

Growing up, it felt magical.

There was always things to find outside,

things to explore.

For a while, it really was this paradise.

I have such great memories with my family

and my abuela, in particular.

[sighs]

So this one

and this one...

are of my abuela.

She...

So her and my grandfather

came to Miami from Cuba

when they were, like, 13 or 14.

She passed away when I was eight,

and I think up until that point in my life,

she was the person I spent most of my time with.

We would listen to music, and we'd be cooking all day.

And so it would just be her and I singing and dancing

around her one-bedroom home.

I miss her.

After my grandmother passed away...

I grew really close to my dad.

Growing up, my dad always told me...

the right thing to do isn't always easy,

but it's always right.

And I feel like this is one of those things.

♪ ♪

Through the criminal case and that investigation,

I learned that this wasn't, like, one bad actor.

It wasn't two or three.

It was a very systemic issue.

♪ ♪

I want accountability.

I felt like if I sued the school board,

it would cause good trouble...

in that we'd go to trial,

and we'd put it all out there for people to see.

And the people that have contributed to this

won't have anywhere to hide.

[indistinct chatter, laughter]

- When I'm prepping to go to trial,

I have to travel from Seattle to Miami

for the criminal court case.

That's been, like, pre-decided by the judge.

It's disruptive in my life.

I have to schedule time off.

I have to onboard new members on my team.

And everyone's like,

"Okay, whatever you need, we got you."

We prep, it doesn't happen, and, like, it just restarts.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Palmetto is in Pinecrest.

Pinecrest is a very wealthy town

in Miami.

Million-dollar homes,

everyone drives a Mercedes kind of a thing,

and the schools I was originally zoned for

were lower-grade school.

So my mom had me transferred through a program

that was running at the time into Miami Palmetto Senior.

This is Pinecrest Gardens.

We used to have... [turn signal clicking]

The poetry nights here.

I feel like there were definitely times

where we had just a packed audience.

♪ ♪

When I first started at Palmetto,

when I was a freshman,

he was teaching ninth-grade English class.

His wife also taught at the school,

and she was my ninth-grade English teacher.

♪ ♪

And so I started going to poetry nights.

He, Mr. Meyers, would organize the poetry nights.

♪ ♪

I was the most vulnerable here that I'd, like, ever been.

I felt safe here. I would read my poetry here.

And knowing now

that during that time, he was listening to my words

and thinking about how something about me

made him feel like he could target me....

He was listening with a different ear

than everyone else was.

♪ ♪

You know, and this is where he asked me to be in his class,

and that's, like, a really sick memory

of mine now.

♪ ♪

So, yeah, it just feels different.

[voice breaking] It's so hard to come back home.

♪ ♪

I had been reading and singing at these poetry nights.

The end of my junior year,

he comes up to me, and he says,

"You know, I would really like for you to be

in my creative-writing class."

And I was like, "Oh, awesome, because I love to do this,

"and, like, everyone complains

"that he's such a strict teacher,

but he wants me to be in his class.

He thinks I'm a good writer."

So I was excited, but I told him,

"We've already turned in our paperwork for which electives,

"so I don't know that I'll be able to be put in your class.

I didn't write creative writing down."

♪ ♪

And so he emailed my counselor,

asking that I be switched into his class.

And within a few days,

I was switched into his creative-writing class

and his AP literature class.

I thought...

nobody knew who he really was.

Everyone that was talking about how mean

or, you know, strict he was,

I was, like, "You really just have to give him a chance

because he does care."

And so I didn't really pay attention

to the criticisms that I'd heard.

I wish I could go back

and tell her to run.

♪ ♪

- Once I started this documentary

and I remembered that the teacher

was fired in Utah,

what I realized is, abusers who aren't stopped

continue to abuse.

I figured out who the person was,

and I reached out to her,

and, sure enough, he was actually engaging

in a similar grooming pattern via email that he was with me.

In fact, the emails were almost identical.

"Dear Utah, okay, first of all,

"you have every right in the world

to vent about blank to me."

- "Okay, first of all"... - "Okay, first of all"...

- "Why are you so scared to write me?"

Remember? - Mm-hmm.

Exactly the same.

"Okay, sweetie, I'm excited to see you tomorrow.

"I hope you're happy and that your weekend was great.

Take care, dear."

These almost identical words to her

really solidified that this

was not something that I was a part of,

it was something that was done to me.

One of his tactics is to...

coach her with her boyfriend

so that he can teach her how to be a lover for him.

"And if the girl likes it that way, she's that much sexier.

"Of course, you poor dear, you only get it

"for a couple of minutes because no guy can last long

when he's really loving something."

♪ ♪

- "See you at school tomorrow." - "See you at school."

♪ ♪

I think the sad part about this is that...

this all could have been stopped at Little Elm, but...

It wasn't.

There was a system that allowed this to happen.

There was a system that didn't stop the teacher

from leaving Little Elm

and going to another school.

At every point he could have been stopped,

someone made the decision to do the easier thing,

which was to pass it on.

And that's the problem--

the system lacks the courage

to hold these people accountable.

To me,

that seemed like the first place to start

in trying to understand how this happens.

[dramatic music]

[computer chimes]

- "It was an English teacher at mine.

"He was the 'cool teacher'

"that kids hung out with at lunch.

"Turns out he was dating a student.

He 'quit.'"

[computer chimes]

- "He was caught in his classroom

"during school hours raping a girl.

"She was 15.

"He left at the end of the year

with no consequences."

[computer chimes]

- "It took getting kids drunk

"and then kissing a 16-year-old to get fired.

Just quietly fired, no police, nothing."

[upbeat music]

- When Cheryl and I started this,

we didn't know how deep this went.

If somebody had reported her teacher

in her high school,

he wouldn't have gone on

to then groom another girl in a different state.

Couple Google searches later,

Cheryl and I found crazy amounts of information

on "passing the trash."

"Passing the trash" is a practice

done by school administrations where predatory teachers

are able to wiggle out of the justice system.

The school administrations simply allow them to resign.

They get a free pass, and they do it again

when they go to the next school.

It's similar to what happens in the Catholic Church,

where priests are passed from diocese to diocese.

And the statistic

is that a teacher will be passed three times

before they're reported and arrested.

When we were looking into the Heaven Rubin case,

we started watching

all of these news clips of Jason Meyers,

and a lot of the coverage of his arrest

focused on the community reaction.

- The community concerned and trying to get the word out

about the alarming allegations tonight.

- Everyone here at Palmetto High is shocked.

We are told by student after student

that Jason Meyers was not only popular,

but he was a really good teacher, at that.

His arrest stunned parents, too.

- Hi, Terri.

- Hi Cheryl.

- Terri, do you know

about the case with Heaven Rubin?

- Yes.

You know, I read so many of these,

and they're all basically the same,

where a teacher has been allowed to perpetrate

against students for a number of years.

It goes unchecked. It goes unreported.

More victims and more victims...

and this is the problem.

"Passing the trash" is something I've known about

and tried to prevent since 1995.

It is essentially the aiding and abetting

of a child sexual predator.

[dramatic music]

- Jason Meyers was at Krop High School,

oh, about nine years.

He was highly acclaimed.

He was in charge

of the Literature Club.

And they went on, you know, a number of field trips

to various places like New York and Washington,

apparently where he was able to be a chaperone.

- You know, it's very common

for perpetrators to be vanguards of the school,

to be award-winning teachers or coaches.

But the only ones who know the monster

are the victims themselves.

- At the time that I met Heaven,

I was actually representing

a former classmate of hers

who was also groomed and sexually abused

by Jason Meyers.

Prior to his conduct with Heaven,

Jason Meyers was hired to teach at Krop High School,

and based upon the investigation that was done

and that I built upon,

he started preying upon girls early.

♪ ♪

- There was an email that was sent to the principal

that something was going on.

♪ ♪

- And this man who wrote the email

said he had heard a rumor

that there were teachers in the school

competing to see who could have sex

with the most girls before they graduated.

The school board was put on notice

in September, 2008.

And then in 2010, a friend of another victim

went to the assistant principal

and said, "Sir, my teacher, Mr. Meyers,

he had sex with my classmate on the school trip."

The only person they interview is Jason Meyers.

- In every state, there are mandated reporting laws

pertaining to child abuse and neglect.

- So, if there's a suspected case,

that would need to be reported

under the sort of mandatory reporting laws?

- Correct, but they're not doing that.

95% of cases

of educator sexual misconduct

are not getting reported to law enforcement

as they should.

That means that administrators

and the perpetrators are negotiating a way out.

♪ ♪

- The question remains,

why was he allowed to transfer to Palmetto

and then continue having sexual relations

with girls at Palmetto?

Meyers was allowed to transfer.

Superintendent Alberto Carvallo

himself did not supposedly make the declaration

that he was able to transfer,

but that department that handles,

you know, school district personnel transfers

had recommended that his transfer be approved

Alberto Carvallo plays the part well,

but it's all about money.

You know, we have a school system

where bad things don't happen.

That way they can get,

you know, more money from the state or the feds.

- For those have worked within the school district,

we call it a mafia,

Miami-Dade County Public Schools--

they don't like a snitch.

"Stay silent.

You want to keep your job, look the other way."

- It's a failure on the part of the district,

from the superintendent to the school board

to the principals involved.

- Jason Meyers was now

a creative-writing and English teacher

at Palmetto High School,

which is where Heaven went to school.

How can you take the position

that you have no idea that there's a potential risk,

when you, yourself, the faculty,

the administration, are referring

to a group of underage girls as "Jason's girls"?

♪ ♪

The system is broken, and it needs to change.

And that was something that Heaven and I agreed on

from day one,

is that, if we're going to make a difference,

however small, however big,

we need to hold people accountable,

and that's what we set out to do.

- I might look like a crazy person on my face,

'cause I'm just looking at you

and thinking about how brave you are

and also how articulate you are about what happened to you.

Like, there was no way I was able to be articulate

about what had happened to me when I was 23 years old.

- It's hard to come to terms with,

even when it's all laid out in front of you and you're like,

"Ohl, shit, that's what that was."

You're like-- You don't want it to be true.

- Mm-hmm.

- The first three years of the criminal case,

we found, like, 10 to 13 other girls.

And every time I learned of somebody new,

I was immediately upset, because I was like,

"Well, if you would've said something years ago,

maybe I wouldn't have been in this position."

But then going through the experience

that I have gone through,

like, you don't really win either way.

There's not a right thing to do

because of how the system is set up.

- It seems like there's more systems in place

to protect the person

who inflicts the pain...

than the person they've inflicted it on.

- Yeah, by keeping this a secret

by not speaking out about it,

like, I felt like I was letting them get their way.

Like, they can say whatever they want on the news.

They can talk about it however they want.

They talked about me graduating early.

They're like, "She can't possibly be depressed.

She graduated school early."

Well, "She can hold a job, so she must not have anxiety."

I felt like I had to be perfect,

but even being perfect was still...

going to be leveraged

in a way that it would hurt me.

This isn't something that's talked about.

And if it is, you get a lot more

of the romanticized version of it than you do

of the outcome of what it feels like,

of what the experience of being abused is.

Yeah.

- I feel like there's this thing with teenage girls,

where teenage girls are sort of seen as dangerous.

And I think sometimes it's difficult for us

to look at teenage girls as children...

- Yeah. - Because they're sexualized.

That, for me, plays into the romanticizing

the student teacher relationships,

'cause it's like, well, you know...

what is taboo and sexy?

I really want to look into that much bigger cultural problem.

- I love that.

- There's so many layers to the onion.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- And... - Oh, hi. I'm Cheryl.

[laughter] - Cheryl is sneaking in.

This is something that I know in my classes we talk about.

I think it's undeniable that as a culture, we sexualize...

- Absolutely. - Teen girls.

So what I'm wondering

is how you see this playing out in the world around you.

- Being a young sexualized girl

is a huge thing in the media, for sure.

I think with a lot of, like, celebrities

and every woman who is famous

has to start when they're, like, 16, 17.

- You see young girls being sexualized

in the media so often,

It made me feel like I was over

the minute I wasn't a teenager anymore.

- There's always been the idea

that a man is the one that, like,

expresses the sexuality of a woman.

And basically I think the idea of the child

is that you can have control over her.

This should not be an okay thing

to fantasize children and women in this way.

♪ ♪

- I think the #MeToo movement

gave us a language that empowered us.

This sort of new generation of teenage girls

and girls in their 20's

seem to have a better sense of,

not just who they are

but a freedom to be who they want to be,

and I think that that gives them power over people

who want to control them.

♪ ♪

- Okay, so what is this?

- That is me at my high-school graduation party

with my mother, cutting my cake.

So that's me...

the day before I slept with the teacher

for the first time.

- You're such a kid, Alisson. - I know, I know.

- It's crazy how much of a kid you are.

- I know. I was.

- So the #MeToo movement

has kind of, like, started changing

the way we think about things,

but something that's really important to me

is just really getting into the nuance

of, like, consent.

- Yeah, I think it's great that these words

are sort of starting to be opened up

because it's not just,

"Oh, well you're 18.

It's not illegal anymore."

You know?

I mean, it's not that simple,

and I think when thinking about authentic consent,

that's where things

like what happened to you and I fall under.

Like, did we say yes? Yes.

Were we of age? Yes.

But was it authentic? No.

And there had been such extensive grooming

that I didn't clock it at the time,

and also, you know, because it was a secret.

- Yeah, I mean, and the consequences

for us are immeasurable.

There are things that we end up

dealing with for our entire lives

and being in reaction to for our entire lives,

whether we've done the work or not.

- My 20s were a disaster. - Mm-hmm.

- My 20s were an utter trauma-filled disaster,

and I can now very much trace back

so much of it to that relationship with my teacher,

because it was just so damaging

in ways that I couldn't even identify or understand, so...

And that's what trauma does.

That's what these kinds of things do.

And I lost my 20s.

- Oh, I definitely did. - I didn't graduate--

I didn't get my bachelor's until I was 33.

- Wow.

Well, I'll try to say this and not cry, but...

[both laugh]

I had never...

I never felt like there was anybody in the whole world

ever in my whole life

that understood what happened to me

until I read your book.

And then I, like, totally felt seen, you know?

- Yeah. - And then I was like,

"How often is this happening in this exact same way

"if it happened to me and Alisson

in totally different worlds?" - Yeah.

The first time I got one of those messages from a reader

saying exactly that, I just sobbed

because that's all that I wanted.

Hopefully...

we're able to show others

that it's not a grief you're alone in.

And I think that's really important.

- I think so, too.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

So much of my experience of the abuse

in high school and in college

involved a lot of isolation.

♪ ♪

And so sitting with Alisson

just made me feel like I wasn't alone anymore.

♪ ♪

When I started out doing this documentary,

I had hoped that he would accept responsibility for this

or at least acknowledge what happened,

but he didn't.

That's the thing about being a grown man

and abusing a child,

is the child grows, and you stay the same.

♪ ♪

And that's his choice.

He is the person that's going to have to walk

through the rest of his life running

from his actions.

♪ ♪

And so this for me

is where I stop running...

and I just stand my ground...

and I accept the responsibility of my own life.

♪ ♪

Okay, let me--

Okay, I'm gonna read you what Tom

sent me, actually, first.

- Okay. - Okay.

He wrote, "How you doing old friend?"

And I wrote "Hi. Doing pretty good."

He goes, "Good to know you're well.

It has been an honor," and... - Okay.

- Didn't tell me what was going on.

Just said that he was being put on administrative leave.

Anyway, the rumor going around right now

is that Tom was fired for having

some sort of an inappropriate interaction

or interactions with students.

Whether he's crossed a line or not, we don't know,

but, obviously, like, if this is true,

then I feel super betrayed.

Do you know what I mean? - Yeah.

- Because not that, like, I'm best friends with Tom,

but I did give him the benefit of the doubt here,

despite, like, the things that he said to me

that were very triggering and hurtful.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, I knew that Tom had, like, contributed

to aspects of the grooming

that I felt.

I just didn't believe--

or maybe I didn't want to believe--

that he'd ever really crossed a line,

because he said he didn't.

- Right.

♪ ♪