Mr. Maze, who refused to comment on this article, was charged with one criminal sexual misconduct with a minor, but his lawyer said the instructor had a “strong innocent claim.” I told the court that I was. The case was later withdrawn, and prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to track the case.
Meanwhile, the school district eventually avoided the proceedings by agreeing to pay about $ 500,000 to the three students who said Maze had misbehaved.
Obedience comes first
Instructors are more than just teachers in the JROTC classroom. They are excellent officers and students are taught to follow a chain of conducting.
“Submission is the first lesson that all military personnel must learn,” says one of the program’s textbooks.
Victims of abuse said the dynamics of the program’s power made it more difficult to resist sexual assault.
One of them, Jordan Luloop, came from a childhood in Tennessee with poverty and drug problems and was no longer associated with his parents. She said she was anxious for something similar to her “her family.”
When JROTC instructor Michael Bass approached her one day in the 2013-14 school year about attending a Hendersonville High School program, she said he made a fascinating pitch. “We are like a family,” he told her.
After she joined the company, 44-year-old Bass invited her to dinner at home, where she interacted with his wife and children. Then one night she said she noticed she was alone with Mr. Bass and wine she had two places on the table. He later took her to her upstairs room, where her first sexual assault took place. She was 17 years old.
After that, Mr. Bass told her almost every day where to meet him personally. She sometimes locked metal doors in her school vaults and offices. She said, he put pressure on her when she began to express her reluctance.
“Whenever he told me I was ready or told him to meet him somewhere, I had to be there,” she said. “If I don’t, the result will be.”
One night, when she threatened to talk to the police about the relationship, she said, Mr. Bass hinted that his time in the army gave him the skills to kill her without anyone knowing. ..
Leloup eventually went to the police, and Bass accused him of citing a recorded conversation in which he admitted sexual relations. He was found guilty of two counts of statutory rape that worsened in 2019 and was sentenced to four years in prison.