Bus driver charged with sexual assaults of six mentally disabled women

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

A substitute bus driver from Unity has been charged with sexually assaulting six mentally disabled female passengers over a three-year period.

Paul A. Lizza, 74, of 1317 Beech Drive was arraigned this week before Youngwood District Judge James Falcon on six counts each of indecent assault on persons with a mental disability, indecent contact without consent and institutional sexual assault filed by state police at Greensburg after a monthlong investigation. Lizza was released on $5,000 bond pending a preliminary hearing March 3.

Trooper James Simpson alleges the assaults on the mentally challenged women began in January 2005 and ended in November, when one of the alleged victims complained to authorities about what happened to her aboard the bus.

Lizza is a veteran driver for First Student, formerly Laidlaw, which has a garage along Route 981 in Unity. State police said Lizza was immediately suspended by the firm, which is contracted by the Mental Health/Mental Retardation Program of Westmoreland County, when the allegations were made in late November.

Repeated attempts to reach Lizza for comment yesterday were unsuccessful. He has no prior criminal record.

According to the arrest affidavit filed before Falcon, the victims ranged in age from 27 to 52 years old. Simpson said Lizza, a former full-time bus driver, had been employed part time as a substitute driver when the assaults allegedly occurred.

Simpson said he interviewed the six women and a male passenger on the bus, which travels throughout the county to serve riders with special needs.

"All seven individuals related ... the same basic information, and their statements were all consistent," Simpson said.

According to police complaints, all six victims were picked up by the bus or van at their residences and were delivered to therapy or training facilities in the morning and then returned home in the afternoon.

"During either the morning trip to the victims' place of therapy or training facility, or the trip home to residences, Lizza would pull the bus off the road, into a parking area or other area, and sexually molest, fondle and assault one or more of the victims," Simpson wrote in the affidavit of probable cause.

Simpson reported that one witness interviewed said the assaults "have been going on for years."

Simpson reported that all of the victims are moderately to severely disabled. Police used social service agencies to assist with the interviews.

Nicole Jones, a spokeswoman for First Student Inc. headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, said the firm has one of "the most stringent employee check and re-check screening programs in the industry in the world."

"I can confirm that that individual (Lizza) was immediately terminated and we have cooperated fully with state police throughout the investigation. I can also say that Mr. Lizza had a clean record, according to the information we had," Jones said.

Jones said First Student, an affiliate of FirstGroup, which purchased Laidlaw International Inc. in 2007, regularly screens employees' driving and criminal records, conducts regular substance abuse screenings and requires employees to complete physical fitness tests.

"We also do regular, announced re-checks," she said.

Officials at the Mental Health/Mental Retardation Program of Westmoreland County could not be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.