8th Grader Raped by Mass. School Bus Driver

A school bus driver in Lowell Massachussettes has been charged with raping an 8th grade passenger, an Associated Press said in a report.

Prosecutors say 22-year-old Gian Carlos Mirabel of Lawrence was ordered held on $50,000 bail after pleading not guilty at his arraignment on child rape charges Monday in Lowell District Court.

Mirabel is charged with two counts of forcible child rape.

Authorities say starting in the fall of 2009, Mirabel would ask the girl to stay on the bus after dropping off the other students, then drive to another area where the alleged assaults took place.

North Reading Transportation has a contract to provide bus services to students in elementary and middle schools in Lowell, and it was the bus company that brought the assaults to light.

“This is every child and parent’s nightmare,” Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee said.

It could not immediately be determined who Mirabel’s lawyer is.

Jessica Venezia, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Gerard Leone, said that as a result of a minor accident involving the bus on Thursday, another North Reading employee was reviewing security footage from the bus driven by Mirabel.

While looking at those security tapes, the employee observed “suspicious activity between the defendant … and a student on the bus,” Venezia said in a prepared statement.

John McCarthy, the owner of North Reading Transportation, told the Press last night that the company’s bus-terminal manager in Lowell was looking at footage because the minor accident on Feb. 25 had occurred in an area where the bus should not have been.

The manager then noticed on the tape a student who should not have been on the bus, and then found evidence of the assaults when reviewing the tapes even further, McCarthy told the Press.

Lowell police could not immediately provide information on last week’s accident, and it was not immediately clear that it was even reported to police.

Prosecutors say the victim was in seventh grade when she first met Mirabel because he was assigned to her bus route. Last fall, when the victim started eighth grade, Mirabel began having her stay on the bus after other students had been dropped off, prosecutors said.

Once the other students were off the bus, prosecutors say, Mirabel would assault the victim, and the victim told investigators that on at least one occasion, Mirabel “physically prevented” her from getting off the bus even though she did not want to be there.

“We allege that the defendant used his position in order to exercise power and control over the victim, coercing the victim into submitting to sexual conduct,” Leone said in a prepared statement.

Prosecutors also say Mirabel told the girl not to tell anyone about what was happening.

“The defendant admitted to the assaults against the victim and acknowledged that he knew the victim was under age and that what he was doing was wrong,” Venezia wrote in a press release.