Marlynn Stillions, Arden Farley and Angelyn Vaughan now set to open trial dates the week of March 12.
The child abuse trial of former Kenwood Elementary pre-K special education teacher Marlynn Stillions, which had been scheduled to begin Monday, has been pushed back to the week of March 12.
Former Okaloosa County School District investigator Arden Farley and former Kenwood principal Angelyn Vaughan have also had their trial dates rescheduled until that same week. While Stillions faces four felony counts of child abuse without great bodily harm, Farley and Vaughan both face multiple felony charges for failure to report suspected child abuse.
The arrests were made Sept. 13 after the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) received a report filed by Farley in August 2016 documenting abuses by Stillions on at least one victim, Noah Perillo, then a 4-year-old nonverbal autistic student.
Noah’s father, Eddie Perillo, went to the Sheriff’s Office in May 2017 after he was alerted to the existence of Farley’s report and obtained it through a public records request. The school district decided Aug. 1, 2016 to disregard Farley’s findings and to not discipline Stillions, who was Kenwood Elementary’s teachers union representative.
The school district’s Human Resources Department filed the report away without notifying Perillo, his ex-wife Harvest, the Okaloosa County School Board or the Florida Department of Education of its existence.
Farley’s investigation found that Stillions had violated school district code of ethics policies by videotaping a student, using her foot to push a student and withholding food from students, among other allegations.
OCSO charges against Stillions included one for allegedly kneeing a child in the head. The First Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office announced following her arrest it would expand that initial criminal investigation, which remains open.
Bill Bishop, the chief assistant state attorney for Okaloosa County, said the criminal trials of Stillions, Farley and Vaughan were not postponed in response to State Attorney Bill Eddins announcing plans to convene a grand jury to consider evidence gathered in his office’s school district investigation.
“The defense attorneys who represent those charged have started the discovery process, including reviewing documents from the cases and taking depositions of all the witnesses,” Bishop said. “There’s a lot of material involved and a lot of witnesses.”
Bishop said it is likely the grand jury — which Eddins said will be asked to focus on how the school system has handled “complaints regarding the misbehavior of employees” — would convene before the March trial dates for Stillions, Farley and Vaughan.
He also said it is quite likely the trials will be postponed again due to the volume of material the defense attorneys must wade through.
Court records show the witness lists provided by the State Attorney’s Office to each defendant’s attorney bear more than 50 names.
Among those being lined up to testify in the Stillions case are Farley, Vaughan, and Eddie and Harvest Perillo. Also on the list are Angelique Cox, the president of the county’s teachers union, and Steve Chatman, the school district’s investigator.
It does not appear that Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson or any of her administration personnel will be called upon to testify for the state in the Stillions case or against Farley or Vaughan.
Jackson, who is presently acting as the school district’s spokesperson, said Wednesday she will continue to decline comment as long as the State Attorney’s Office investigation remains active.
Dwayne Vasiloff, a former OCSO deputy who worked as the school resource officer at Kenwood, is also listed as a potential state witness in the Stillions case. Vasiloff retired rather than completing disciplinary action by the department after it was found he “blatantly” neglected his duty to assist in investigations of child abuse allegations at the school.
The vast majority of those scheduled to testify in the Stillions case also appear on the witness lists of Farley and Vaughan.