Technique: an advocacy tally presented as a criminal count
"Independent watchdog group Jeffco Kids First has documented more than 40 cases of criminal sexual abuse, grooming, or serious boundary-crossing by Jeffco employees, most since 2024 — and the Board has never held a public hearing on the pattern." — notyetjeffco.org, captured September 27, 2026.
Correction (Sept 27, 2026): an earlier version of this entry called the "more than 40" figure unverified and said it sat above every published count. We have since reviewed the Jeffco Kids First document the site links to, and that was wrong: the document does list roughly four dozen entries, and its own heading describes them, almost word for word, the way the site does. The number is real and faithfully drawn from its source. The problem is what that number is made of.
The document is Jeffco Kids First's "running documentation," which it states plainly is "not exhaustive" and is the advocacy group's own "work product." By its own heading it deliberately combines four different things: criminal sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, grooming, and "severe boundary-crossing." Those are not the same category, and the entries bear that out. A minority involve actual criminal charges or convictions — the arrests and sentences already documented on our what-checks-out page (Martinez, Castro, Chevrier, Illanes) and a handful of others. Many more are explicitly unproven: the document itself marks entries "allegedly," "under investigation," or "working to verify." And some describe conduct that is not a crime at all — an employee's off-duty personal art or blog, an off-hours podcast, following students on social media, professionalism and boundary complaints.
So "more than 40 cases of criminal sexual abuse, grooming, or serious boundary-crossing" is an accurate description of the document. But presenting that number to voters as the measure of a child-safety crisis invites them to read all forty-plus as criminal abuse, when the compiled list runs from felony convictions down to unproven allegations and off-duty personal conduct. The count of actual criminal cases is much smaller — still real, still serious, and not in dispute here (see what checks out), but a fraction of forty. This is the same category-blending our watchdog entry flags in the "independent watchdog" label.
Two smaller notes. "Most since 2024" does track the document's own heading ("the majority occurring between 2024–2026"), so that part holds. And "the Board has never held a public hearing on the pattern" carries no source — it is a sweeping negative that would take a search of board minutes to confirm either way.