A former Atlantic City substitute teacher was sentenced to nearly 21 years in federal prison Tuesday.
The 250 months was 10 months more than the minimum under the plea agreement, and more than four years shy of the max the government wanted.
Kayan Frazier presented himself as a father to the child, calling him son and plying him with food, clothes and events.
But instead, he was just grooming the young boy for his own sexual gratification, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Vondra Carrig told the judge.
Frazier first set his sights on the vulnerable 9-year-old while substituting at Pennsylvania Avenue School.
He was later fired after his cousin, Principal La'Quetta Small, reported him to the company that employs the district's substitutes.
But that didn't deter Frazier from continuing the abuse, Carrig said.
Instead, he was almost emboldened, getting another job with access to troubled children, as a caseworker for the Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
Frazier apologized for his actions, and said he is working on himself and with others incarcerated with him.
His attorney asked the judge to consider Frazier's remorse and the two years spent working on himself in allowing a more lenient sentence.
After earning the boy's trust, Frazier began his abuse. He even threatened to kill the boy's grandmother if he told, Carrig said.
The victim remains afraid of Frazier.
Frazier, now 29, was a caseworker for the Division of Children and Families when he was arrested in 2019, on child pornography charges.
But he met the victim during his stint as a substitute teacher at Pennsylvania Avenue School in late 2016.
He befriended the boy’s mother in an attempt to be around him outside of school, according to a lawsuit the unnamed woman filed in May.
The school board voted last week to have DeCotiis, FitzPatrick, Cole & Giblin represent Superintendent Barry Caldwell, who is named in the suit.
The lawsuit names Dr. La’Quetta Small, who was principal at Pennsylvania Avenue when her cousin Frazier worked there. Her husband, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, is also a defendant.
The suit claims the Smalls knew of the abuse and that at least one incident happened inside their home.
It was Dr. Small who first reported that Frazier was having outside contact with the student, violating school policy.
Small filed a complaint Feb. 25, 2017, saying she found out Frazier had a third-grader sleep at his home Feb. 12, and then came to the school the next day to take the child back home with him.
Both violate state statute, she noted in her report. At that time, Small suggested Frazier be removed from the school — not the district, which was also an option.
But Small already had quietly removed her cousin from Pennsylvania Avenue School two months earlier.
Emails obtained by BreakingAC via an Open Public Records Act request show that Pennsylvania Avenue
School secretary Davinee Brumfield wrote Source4Teachers on Dec. 13, 2016, asking that Frazier be removed from the “long-term floater teacher position,” and notes that he didn’t work in the school that day.
An hour later, Small also sent the company an email saying, “Kayan Frazier is not working at PAS and he is not able to remove himself from the position to accept other openings.”
That email worked to both take Frazier out of his cousin’s school while clearing the way for him to accept positions at other schools within the district.
He continued to work for the district eight more days at four different city schools: Uptown Complex, Sovereign Avenue, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Complex and Texas Avenue.
An investigation by the Division of Child Protection and Permanency found no wrongdoing at the time, and they even hired Frazier as a caseworker after he was fired by Source4Teachers.
Small did not notify police or the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office. That office did receive an email from DCPP saying that they found no wrongdoing.
