ISD teacher Jerry Claus fired after statutory rape charge from 2005 case in Ohio

A few weeks ago, a deaf man named Jerry Claus was indicted by a grand jury in Ohio of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor based on an incident from 2005. This charge is equivalent with statutory rape, which is an adult having sex with a minor. The indictment was on February 11 and he was arrested on February 13.

Claus was an elementary teacher at the Indiana School for the Deaf for the past 10 years and was recently fired as a 5th grade teacher. This is according to two individuals familiar with the situation.

Claus had a warrant from Erie County, Ohio and he was arrested in Hamilton County, Indiana and held in a jail for two weeks before being extradited to Erie County. He was released on Friday on a $20,000 bond and will have his arraignment hearing on March 30 at 1 p.m. in Erie County.

I was able to do an interview with the survivor who reported the rape case. The person is a deaf female. She didn’t want to go on the record, but gave me permission to share her story.

The woman said in 2005, she was 13 years old and a student at the Michigan School for the Deaf. She first met Claus at an amusement park where he worked — he was 28 at the time. She said Claus flirted with her and got her contact. Both talked using Sidekicks (an early version of a cell phone). Claus asked if she could be his “secret girlfriend.” After a while, Claus visited her in Michigan and took her to a hotel room and gave her alcohol. They had sex that night. She said Claus at another time he took her to his mother’s home in Sandusky, Ohio and had sex a second time. She said Claus, at a later time, took her to his dorm room at Bowling Green State University where she became drunk. She woke up feeling sore and found out they had sex without her knowledge or consent. She said the experience negatively affected her young life and she attempted suicide once and would have flashbacks from time to time. She said she recently shared what happened with a counselor and was told to immediately go to the police. She officially made a report to law enforcement last fall and was able to show printouts of images or email exchanges that showed the two had a relationship. Last year the survivor was 28 years old, which is the age that Claus was when she was allegedly raped at 13. The woman said she is very happy that Claus was arrested and that she encourages any other survivor out there to speak up, report it, tell someone, and don’t hold back or live with fear. She said the first step is to make a report to the police and they will guide you. She explained that in recent years she considered moving to Indiana so her children could attend ISD, but once she found out Claus worked there, she dropped her plans. So that’s the recap of her version of what happened.

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From looking at the ISD’s Facebook page, I saw that Claus was hailed as a hero last year for delivering iPads to elementary students at their homes across Indiana during the Covid-19 pandemic.

I also saw that Claus worked as a representative for LegalShield in 2015.

One individual I talked with said Claus has a history of making inappropriate comments towards students or touching them, and that some people in the ISD community was not surprised by the indictment, but there is a lot of shock and anger.

Another individual said Claus was accused of inappropriately touching students or of asking to meet students off-campus. The individual said Claus was suspended for a short time a few years ago, but that there were no real consequences or changes. The person said there are some parents or former students who feel frustrated that the school didn’t do more after finding out that Claus was arrested.

The first individual expressed concern that ISD was “not doing enough” other than firing Claus and sending emails to people in the ISD community, because there may be other victims out there over the past 10 years. The individual recommended an independent investigator be brought in to talk with parents and students who took classes or worked in any way with Claus.

Both individuals said Claus was someone who liked to spend as much time as possible with children and would text them, play online games with them at night, or attend sports games even if it was out of town. Claus worked as a referee and would frequently officiate girls sports.

Online records from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office showed that Claus was arrested in 2006 on a domestic violence charge.

I received word that he used to work at the Ohio School for the Deaf. I have reached out to both ISD and OSD for comment. I have also reached out to Claus for comment.