I. Home II. Summary of Case III. Brady Smith      a. Evidence and Allegations      b. Profile      c. Audiotape Transcript IV. John Piland's Handling of Case      a. The Plea Bargain      b. The Conflict of Interest      c. The Probation Violations      d. The Untried Cases V. The Civil Cases VI. Conclusions      a. Effects on our Community      b. What You Can Do Who I Am Credits Discussion Forum

The Civil Cases Four civil cases have been brought forward against Brady Smith and Unit 4 schools (which serve Champaign).  The first civil case was John Doe 1 and his trial was in May of 2004, concerning molestation that he reported in 1996.  His case was the weakest of the five, because it was the first case that was actually reported to officials.  This was the case for which there was insufficient evidence to proceed in a criminal trial in 1996, and which John Piland himself did not include as a victim in the criminal charges. Brady and the school district were found not guilty during this trial.  But, before drawing conclusions about this, consider the following: The fact that Brady is a convicted sex offender was not allowed to be presented at trial.  Brady made a big show at the trial about his reputation being ruined by this allegation.  The jury didn't know that he was currently in prison serving out his sentence as a child sexual offender. The John Doe from 1977 was not allowed to testify, showing that allegations against Brady have been going on for a long time, and made by people who have nothing to gain. Even though the jury wasn't allowed to know that Brady was in prison, it was allowed that John Doe I was currently in prison for delivery of drugs.  So, from the jury's point of view, it was a drug dealer who was in prison making allegations against an otherwise respectable white man. Another interesting tidbit from this trial is that Brady delayed the trial by filing a motion for continuance in Nov 2003, claming he was mentally incompetent.  Six months later, he defended himself quite ably in court.  Remember that Brady was a former probation officer, and knew his way around a court room, and that the there was a high powered law firm representing the school district, which he benefited greatly from. Note that John Doe I wasn't a drug dealer before 1996, and that he never attended another day of school after the day he said Smith molested him. Piland has compared this case to the one in 2001 as evidence that the plea bargain was justified.  However, in addition to all the reasons above for why this case was much weaker, the main reason for not comparing them is that the plea bargain case had a solicitation on audiotape as evidence, which should have eliminated the need for a plea bargain.  Since Piland had dismissed all the other charges, all he had to do was put the audiotape in front of a jury to prove solicitation.  This is very very different from what had to be proven in the civil case. Others Cases Settled Out of Court The civil cases that actually do compare to the criminal case are the victims who were actually listed in the criminal cases.  These other civil cases have been settled out of court (see news story here).  The insurance company handling the case offered $352,000 to settle the cases, which was a lot of money to the boys, and they agreed to it. Note that the defense attorneys settled right before trial.  There was not that much more money they would have spent had the case actually gone to trial.  So, it appears that those cases were strong enough that the defense did not want to go forward with it. The John Doe I ruling is now on appeal, and they are hoping to get a positive ruling so they can introduce additional evidence in a later trial.