A former teacher was cited on Thursday for physically abusing seven young children at the now-shuttered Frog & Toad Child Care & Learning Center in Burlington.
Gary L. Pasquale III, 29, of Champlain, N.Y., faces 14 counts of cruelty to a child and one count of second-degree unlawful restraint. His seven victims were 1 and 2 years old, according to a press release from the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations, which oversees criminal cases involving children. Pasquale is due for arraignment in Chittenden County Superior Court on May 12.
Pasquale was an employee of Frog & Toad for 11 years. The criminal investigation found probable cause that he “willfully assaulted, unlawfully restrained, and ill-treated” toddlers in his care, “causing pain, suffering [and] distress” and “neglected children by failing to provide proper care and support.”
The probe began after another Frog & Toad teacher — who was fired in February — called the Department for Children and Families’ child abuse hotline to report Pasquale for pushing children into a snowbank and mistreating them in other ways. DCF subsequently launched its own investigation and alerted the Burlington Police Department, which referred the case to the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations.
The DCF investigation also found, using video footage and interviews, that Pasquale had physically abused toddlers in his care.
The center’s owner, Tiffany Corbett, abruptly closed the Burlington program on March 20. She also owns a Frog & Toad center in Essex despite calls from parents for her to sell.
The director of the Burlington center was Pasquale’s mother, Erin Pasquale. Both declined to speak to detectives on advice of their attorneys, according to investigators. Neither could be reached for comment on Friday.
Jake and Corinne Clark, parents of a toddler at the Burlington center, said that when they heard about Gary Pasquale’s arrest, they felt “relief that what these children experienced is being taken seriously enough to warrant action, but heartbreak because it confirms that something deeply wrong happened in a place where we trusted our child would be safe.”
The Clarks believe the arrest is “only one step in a much longer and painful process” of reckoning with what happened. Further investigation is warranted, they said, “to ensure that everyone responsible is held accountable and that this cannot happen again.”
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