All language subtitles for Keep.This.Between.Us.S01E04.1080p.WEB.h264-OPUSx

I had been...

...into what you called the office
a couple of times

over relationships with students.

- And...
- For what though?

- For what specifically?
- No, just the... the classic.

It was the, you know,
girl hanging out in your room

the whole time, that kind of stuff.

You know, and I'm just, like,
"If you want to investigate me,

"Investigate me, please."

What's public information is
he's under investigation

on the TEA website

for misconduct with a student.
We don't know what happened.

And I don't know
when we will know what happened.

He sat down with us.

He's been talking to us about this.
You've told him.

And we've had conversations
about grooming,

inappropriate relationships,
all this stuff for...

- Yeah.
- ...a long time.

For me, it's pretty simple.

Are these or is all this stuff true?

Like the... Are... Are these real?

Are these real text messages
between you and this student?

And what were you thinking?

I'm just tying myself into knots
about this.

I can't help but think about the girl
on the other end of these allegations.

Given the whole process
that we've gone through.

Everybody who we've met
along this journey who's had...

who's been in her shoes.
I'm thinking about you.

I'm thinking about Heaven.
I'm thinking about Alisson.

Yeah, personally, I would not feel good

if we didn't do our due diligence
around this

just because of knowing
how this cycle continues

is by people not getting
to the bottom of it,

and not exposing it.

And I'm not gonna contribute to that.

And that's like what I keep coming back to
with this Tom thing...

you know.

I made the stupid-ass decision
of actually caring.

Kids knew that they were safe,

that they can come
and talk to me about anything.

It was all done with doors open.

And they told me
that I was being insubordinate

by not following procedures,
which I don't quite understand.

But I just felt like I was used as...

an example, all of a sudden...

...done.

Districts have become over-reactionary.

And the fact that I'm being singled out
is kind of painful.

For me, grooming is, uh,
a willful intention

to drag the student
into a more intimate relationship.

You know, "Can I see you?"

It could be sending an image.

It could be, you know,
an inappropriate text.

If you try to instigate private meetings.

"Send me a picture of you."

Uh, "Oh my God, that looks hot."

Wanting to talk off hours,
that kind of stuff.

To me, that would be an instance
of definite grooming.

So, we saw
some posts on social media

that's purported to be texts
between you and a student.

Uh, I don't know

if those were accurate.

If they were... If they were those texts,
or if they were...

what context they were given into you.
Have you seen those?

Yes, I have.

Were those texts
that were between you and a student?

Yes, they were.

I think that what the main problem
they have with it is

they don't understand the way
that the Spanish language works.

There's two different ways to say,
you know...

you know, "Love you.
Have a great day. Fantastic."

You know, there's "Te quiero,"

which is basically used
in front of family and friends.

You know, I say that
to all my former students,

"Te quiero." And there's the "Te amo,"
which is that's a bit serious.

And you don't want to do that
in any way, shape, or form.

So for me, all those texts that I...

that I had sent
to this particular student,

uh, were basically support.

"Hey, nice hair, love the change of hair.
Fantastic." In retrospect,

yeah, I probably shouldn't have sent them.

But at the same time, any kind of support
I would have been able to give them,

um, I don't regret that.

If my daughter was getting
those text messages from a teacher,

I would be at the school that same day.

Period. End of story.

Yeah, no, I don't believe him.

I don't believe him. I can't believe him.

The story with Tom is
this greater kind of arc

of not understanding where the line is.

And kind of placing the blame
on everybody else

because he's not being able to teach
in the way that he wants to teach.

Uh, we've been together
for four and a half years now.

I already know, like,
that is my life partner, you know.

We are married in our heads

even though it hasn't happened
in life yet.

Heaven is...

the sweetest person I know, um...

You know, she's often described as,
you know, like a ray of sunshine.

And I feel like that is
the true Heaven at her core.

She is just so sweet and loving,

but then no one sees the hours
she spends in bed just, like,

crying because there is so much...
or she feels like everything is on her.

And she is constantly double-checking

and second-guessing
every move that she makes.

She doesn't expect to be believed.

She comes prepared with every single thing
I need to explain

to make sure
that you are going to trust me

because that is what everyone else
showed her she needed to do.

It feels like it would be chaos
to be in Heaven's head.

The teachers had...

The teachers and the administration
at my high school

really made me feel like it was my fault.

And they played a role in,
like, that psychological, like...

where you can't trust yourself

because you're like,
"Did I do something wrong?"

Like, it took me years to understand
that the stuff he had said to me to...

make me trust him,
the advice that he was giving me

was to have me under his wing,
so that I would trust him.

So that...

he could get to know
what he needed to know about me

to manipulate me, to groom me.

There were just...
There were just a few things

that I feel like now looking back on it,
it was right in my face

with what I know now. I just think...

he had a motive,

and he was willing to do
what it took to get his way.

The first comment
that I can remember that was, like, off

was I was leaving one day,

he kind of, like, leaned back in his...
in his chair

and was just kind of like looking at me
and was like, "I really like you."

And I was like, "thanks,"
like, "I like you too."

Like, "Cool, this class is awesome."

And he said, "No, I'm serious.
I mean, I like, like you."

And so I didn't really think
anything of it. I just kept going on.

And then there was another time
where he'd said, you know...

"I don't know if I've told you this before
but I struggle with insomnia."

And he said, "And, you know,
when the school year starts again,

"that... that sometimes can ramp up.

"And I have, like, a problem
with my insomnia

"but I haven't been feeling that way

"since we started working together."

"Something about the admiration
in his eyes

"as I was childlike seemed comforting.

"Rarely was I rewarded with kindness
in moments of childlike behavior.

"I remember being conditioned to grow up
before I knew what growing up meant.

"It made us closer.

"He coached me through some of this pain,
opened a portal to poetry

"that allowed me to make friends
with pen and page."

I felt he was mentoring me,

um, by sharing common experiences,

or giving me advice of, like,
this won't hurt you for so long.

You'll be able to move away
and go to college,

and, like, you'll start to shape
your life, and these, you know...

the stress that you're feeling
right now won't be forever.

And so I felt like
I was getting a benefit in that.

He said, "Bring me everything
you've written in the last year."

And a lot of it was, like,
gushy and emotional

and, like, very embarrassing
if I had to read it now.

He said, "You know,
your work, it's really immature."

And I was surprised
and a little disappointed.

I went from being good enough
that you invited me in to...

to now I'm immature.

So I kind of like put that on myself
of like, "What can I do to be better?"

I had been writing a poem
where I felt like

a boy I had a crush on
didn't like me back.

He's like, "So, you're feeling
disconnected from this person

"that you're trying to connect with.

"And sex is like a really intimate thing.

"And, like, can we maybe
write about that?"

I did not write
about those kinds of things.

I didn't really talk about
those kinds of things.

And so he gives me this example.

Um, he says, you know,
"I wrote this last night,

"I was thinking about you."

He'd written a line about lips to lips,

creating like a double entendre
of lips on your face

and lips on...

One day, he was like,
"You can come sit over here by my desk."

He was like, "You can sit closer."

I was standing and he stood up,
and he put his hands on my face.

And, you know, I said, "No."

Not very loudly...

but I was uncomfortable.

And he kissed me.

And that's kind of what started like...

a slew of other inappropriate,

and very manipulative,
and exploitive behavior.

I did things...

that I did not feel comfortable doing.

The reason why I didn't scream, or run,
or tell someone immediately

is because...

when he would ask,

you know, "Can you go down on me?"

It was after an argument

where he had said that I was ungrateful,

that I didn't value the time
and effort and...

energy that he put into helping me.

You know,
I was scared that if I said something,

I was going to ruin someone's life
who maybe cared about me.

And at that time,
I was certain that he cared.

"His cold hands,
the sharpness in his voice,

"my isolation."

And during that time,
I just didn't know what to do.

Like, way too much
for a 17-year-old to carry.

The anxiety, like,
really started to kick in.

I was having trouble keeping food down.

I really wasn't eating very much.

Um, not sleeping very much.

He'd told me, "You know, nobody can know."

And so I was pushing my friends away.

And so this world
that I had worked so hard to create,

where I'd had friends,

and things I was interested in doing...

all of those things went away
because of the pressure and the guilt.

And the restrictions...

that he made me feel like
would benefit me if I did them.

If you don't tell, then, like...

things are gonna be okay.

And so I just went along.

I tried to follow the rules
as best as I could.

"But once he was gone,
after we'd been physical,

"he was everywhere,

"lingering inside of me,
and I wanted to itch him off my skin."

Where can you go?

Those are the people
you're around eight hours a day.

Everybody condones this authority
that these men have over you, right?

I'm being told by everybody
that these men who are my teachers

are the ones who were in charge of me.

That power dynamic, in a way,
is almost ultimate

because everyone around you
is telling you to trust these people.

I was sort of bred to be this person.

So, if you took sort of
the culture of Texas

and you sort of concentrated it down
to something, it was Little Elm.

Very small.
I think there were 2,500 people

when I graduated high school in the town.

It was run by White men.

Having your education guided by White men,

and predominantly taught by White men,

having women's sports teams
run by White men...

definitely...

gave the impression and the idea
that White men were superior.

And when you have a society culture

where White men are sort of ruling
and in charge,

it creates an environment
that's not safe for anyone else.

Certainly not safe for women and girls.

Certainly not safe for people of color.

Certainly not safe
for people who were different.

I had told my friend
that things are going on,

and she had said,
"This makes me really uncomfortable.

"Do what you wanna do,
but like, I can't handle this."

And my best friend at the time,
her mom decided to call the police.

And so, I was pulled out
of my fifth period.

And the police walk in,
and I'm sitting there thinking like,

"Oh my God, I know what that is."

And so the police, you know,
they bring me upstairs

into their resource officer room and...

they start asking me questions,
and I denied it, um...

until they said, "This is happening
to other people, and we know it."

And, like, a switch went off.

There were so many other people

that felt that Mr. Meyers
had been inappropriate with them.

You know, some of my close friends
that had said he had abused them as well.

And I'm thinking,
"How was he abusing the both of us?"

And we're sitting diagonal
from one another in class.

And then I was faced with watching
the news media broadcast the arrest

and seeing his picture
and my story in such a public way.

Forty-year-old Jason Meyers
has been arrested.

Palmetto High School
teacher is behind bars.

Jason Meyers is charged
with sexual battery.

Meyers,
accused of having sex with a student...

And a teacher
who is accused of sex crimes.

I was also very upset
when I saw they said my initials.

Okay. So he's, uh...

alleged to have committed a sexual battery
on a minor by an adult.

Let me take a look at this.
Minor has initials H.R.

Following his arrest,
a reporter showed up at my house.

Followed my dad on his route to work.

You know, when they come
and they bang on the door

and you don't know what's going on,

you open it and people are just
screaming questions at you.

And I remember crying.

By the time I was back at school,
everyone knew that it was me.

My world was falling apart, and...

I have to go back to school
because I still need to get into college,

and life needs to have
some sense of normalcy.

And I have my teacher, and I sit down,

and she starts talking about,
"The girls involved with this are lying.

"Jason Meyers is a great teacher.
He's a great man."

Very, very quickly,
it was this culture of like...

"He's with us...

"and you're not."

Nobody knows why there's
such a huge protection with Jason Meyers.

Once a teacher gets arrested,

it has to go to
the Department of Education in Tallahassee

for licensure investigation.

And nothing was done in Tallahassee
with Jason Meyers.

I don't know why.

In 2016, '17, '18, '19 and '20,
his license wasn't even touched.

Parents have come out to the school
board meetings to talk about it.

The school district's penchant
for not caring.

There have been teachers

who have committed sexual crimes
on our children,

and I want to know why
these teachers are being protected

and not being held accountable.

But this is a real issue.

You have kids who are out of the system
and five years later,

they're waiting to see
their abuser in court.

You guys allow this.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

It's unacceptable and it's got to change.

So we filed a lawsuit under title nine

to hold the school board accountable
for failing to do its job.

Wasn't to just chase the money,
just get the quick settlement,

let them sweep it under the rug.

It was to get the point across
that the system is broken.

I don't think the school board
ever thought we would see it through.

I think they thought that
they could throw money at the problem

and it would go away.

The civil case
happened in fall of 2021.

The news media followed
the case considerably.

It's a teacher sex case.

What did Miami-Dade's
school district leaders know?

The school got a warning
about Meyers years before his arrest.

Meyers' former student
has already filed a lawsuit.

The student has filed suit.

She is Jane Doe
in a lawsuit filed against

the Miami-Dade School Board.

Suing the school board
was really difficult

because it was me versus them.

It wasn't the State versus Meyers.

And so they were going to attack me.

And they did. They victim blame.

They say, "Well, here are all
of the other things that were wrong,

"it wasn't us."

They would go to any length
to avoid accountability.

And so they threw money at the problem

by hiring so-called experts
to support their theory of defense.

They also had a psychologist,
Dr. Sheila Rappa, who evaluated Heaven.

Dr. Rappa was adamant
that she was not traumatized in any way,

and did not suffer
from any sort of mental health disorder.

The other attack they're making
is social media posts.

They thought that would support
their theory that she's doing fine,

that she's not damaged,
just like their experts said.

It was just a really ridiculous,
comical thing, honestly, to us,

because they just tried so hard to paint
that narrative using social media.

We are in this misogynist culture
where women, if they're not believed,

then, you know, why would you believe
a teenager especially?

You know, there's something ageist
just about this too,

that they couldn't know what's happening

or what did they do to contribute
to that situation.

People were victim blaming me.

There's been a lot of that.

But I think I was
the number one perpetrator

of the victim blaming.

I was the person who did wrong,

and then I was the person
that could take responsibility for it.

And so in a way,
I was taking responsibility for everybody,

so that I could make it okay.

It's just so sad, honestly.

And it just ruined
so many girls' confidence.

And it's a lot of unlearning
for a lot of people.

You start that guilt cycle so early,

it's really hard as an adult
to come out of that,

no matter how much therapy you get.

Sometimes that guilt and shame
just lives inside you.

It's hard for me to talk about...

the sex...

that happened.

I feel a lot of, like,
shame and guilt around that.

And the defense team has kind of, like,

really pushed to reinforce this
is that like,

"Well, you could have screamed,
you could have ran away.

"You could have told someone immediately."

He gradually progressed
the sexual activity.

There were instances of fellatio,

cunnilingus, and sexual intercourse,

inside the classroom,
behind the closed door,

right under the school board's noses.

"I remember kicking my legs
right, left, right.

"My feet unable to reach the ground.

"I turned to him embarrassed,

"like a child who suddenly
became self-aware

"of the space they took,
noise they created.

"He met my doe eyes with eagerness.

"Calculated, studious, ready to pounce."

I was a kid.

She had other dreams.
She had other passions.

And they took that from her
because they didn't do their jobs.

They really came after my character

and my family in that and so,

it's turned into something more
than just what happened to me.

And it has strained relationships
with people in my immediate family.

And now I'm living
with the aftermath of that.

And I don't know where some of the people
in my family fall in my life since then.

She kind of sacrificed her family
by doing this,

not knowingly
that she was sacrificing her family,

but her family didn't want her
to go through with the civil lawsuit.

I think in a lot of ways,
Heaven is alone right now.

This stuff is so heavy.

It's like, hard for me to,
like, make friends,

or be myself around people
because this is my life right now.

If this wouldn't have happened,
my life would have been very different.

I don't know that I would necessarily wish
for it to be different

because I do feel like a strong
sense of purpose with what I'm doing,

because I think it will make a difference.

So I'm happy to do it.

- Jams and jellies?
- Yeah.

Jams and jellies.

Once trial is over,
we sit down at a restaurant

and we're waiting for the verdict.

And the second we sit down,
Mark is calling me

and he says, "We have a verdict."

We ran into the courtroom
and I'm sitting there

and it's, like, very, very, very quiet.
And the jury comes out.

The jury says, "Yes, we found
Miami-Dade County Public Schools

"to be deliberately indifferent."

It's like super reassuring
'cause you're hearing one by one

the people that have watched it
from that outside perspective.

They read the verdict
and it was a six million dollar verdict.

And honestly,
at that point I could feel Heaven

sitting next to me
have this cathartic moment.

I, myself, was just overwhelmed

with pride and... hope.

And when we walked outside,
it was...

it was like the skies had just opened up
and it just started to pour.

And I started crying
and I felt like it was my grandmother,

the streets were flooded,
it was raining so hard

and it was so windy, and I just...

In a weird way,
I felt like it was her saying like,

"Good job. You saw it through."

We're inspired that we won
in the civil case,

but we are discouraged
that it's been almost six years

and yet the criminal trial
still has not occurred.

Mr. Meyers was arrested
in February 2016.

Criminal charges were filed thereafter.

He's being criminally prosecuted
as he should.

And here we are in 2022
and he has yet to face justice.

They're hoping
that they will exhaust Heaven,

that she will lose the will to fight,

that she will lose the courage
to come back to court

and tell her story again
to try to get a criminal prosecution.

But that's not...
that's not the girl I know.

Do you think you want a whole
one of these rolls or just like half?

Um, just a half, please.

- Okay.
- Thank you.

I wish you could come with me to Miami.

I know, baby. When is that?
A couple weeks?

Yeah, I am...
I have a hearing in two weeks

to see if it's actually gonna go to trial.

Okay. I was gonna ask you
how confident you are

that it actually does happen
as it's planned.

Yeah, that's, um,
that's the question, right?

I'm definitely afraid
that they decide he's innocent.

That it just becomes the antithesis
to what happened with the other trial

because I don't know what kind of effect
that would have on Heaven.

You could argue, this is a more
significant case than the other one,

'cause this is the actual person
who did this to you.

This was the personal connection.

The person that built the trust
and then ripped that away,

and was doing this
to so many other people.

I'm really afraid
of that somehow going wrong

of somehow, they find him innocent.

Our whole relationship,
I have one of these court cases to happen.

It's... They have been
the biggest darkest cloud

hanging over Heaven...

for the entire time I've known her.

And it has felt like
that is holding her back

from being able to...

see a future,

to be able to look forward
to anything ahead of us.

Like we talk about a life together,

but you can tell
that it doesn't feel real to her.

Your partner's almost as important
as your friends and...

Or your therapist
or your parents or whatever.

And that they're kind of
going through this with you.

When Cheryl told me
she was thinking about doing something,

I thought maybe it would be a play.

My first reaction was
I wanted to protect her from it,

seemed scary to me
to put it all out there.

Then once she started
sort of digging into it

and I could see it was...

a release for her. It never leaves you.

That kind of violation of who you are,

she'll never be able to forget it.

It'll never leave her,
but I'm hoping she can find some peace.

The reason why
I like to go through these

is because it gives me
a good frame of reference

for what's gonna be asked of me again
when I go to trial.

So...

something that I think
the defense will try to do

during the case is try to ask me
really specific questions

to have the jury hear me say,
"I don't know" as many times as possible

because if I'm like
the lead witness on a case,

and I don't know,
"She doesn't remember anything."

That's like their best shot
at saying he's not guilty.

Beyond a reasonable doubt
is a hard thing to prove.

I'm the only one
that the judge has approved to testify.

Like it's on me to carry that through.

And it's a lot.

Good morning, Judge, Jesse Freeman,
on behalf of the State.

We have sounding on Thursday.

You wanna go ahead and let me know
what the status is now?

Yes, Your Honor. State's ready.

And I do have Heaven
the victim on the case.

She is present on the Zoom
as well as my trial partner.

That date does work.

We were looking forward
to going to trial now.

Defense is ready as well.

That said, there are issues
with the practicality of it

going on March 14th.

Okay. Good morning.

Good morning.

Judge, State's ready
to begin trial on 04/25,

the lead detective, Detective Webb

is in a... About a month-long training
in Alabama.

What I discussed with Mr. Hornstein

was possibly picking a jury
the week of 04/25

and then starting testimony
on the week of 05/02,

or in the alternative
having Detective Webb testify via Zoom

at the trial during the week of 04/25.

Defense, what's your preference?

- Your Honor, object to both.
- Okay.

To have the lead detective
on the case by Zoom is not going to work.

I'm gonna be honest with you.
We start Monday.

I don't know that we'll be able
to pick a jury in a day.

Tuesday, I have to finish
no later than 4:00.

Okay.

We're all gonna make our best efforts,

but I can't promise you
when it's gonna be done.

The State chose to wait six years

to decide that they wanted to file
a Williams Rule of this week.

Right. I understand what you're saying.

I, you know, it...
It's a last minute.

I... A hundred percent agree,
but they're still timely.

So I don't think that I should impose
the most onerous sanction

and have her stricken.

If we're not gonna be in trial,
I already have another trial set.

Second waiting to go.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Meyers and...

the rest of the people
that are on the Zoom.

It's just hard. It's just really hard
on my emotions and...

And that's like
the reality of being victim. It's...

extensive, unreasonable delays...

lots of back and forth.

Does waiting six years for trial,
is that speedy?

I think too often, we...

we put pressure on the victims

to explain to us their trauma,
their experience,

to teach us and to educate us

about what they've gone through so that
we have better understanding of it.

And that's putting too much
of the onus on the victims

to take responsibility
for what was in fact done to them...

by somebody else.

We don't spend enough time

pointing the finger
at the perpetrator of the crime.

We need to talk about
how the perpetrators need to change,

not how we need to avoid
being victimized.

You know, people keep asking me
if I feel like I've...

found a resolution
or if I feel healed in any way.

And I look at the different ways

that Heaven, and Alisson, and I

have all processed through our trauma.

And for Alisson,

she sat in a room,

and spent time with her journals.
And then she wrote a memoir.

And for Heaven, she...

decided that...

the legal system

was the way that she was going
to process through her trauma.

For me, I decided to make a documentary

because that was the way
that I process through my pain.

And I'm a filmmaker.

And so that's how I wanted
to process my trauma.

I think in looking at
our three very different experiences,

what I've realized is
at the end of that road...

in a way,
there is no resolution because...

there's no way to tie
this experience up in a bow

and, you know, put it away on a shelf.

This is what
we've been living with forever,

so it would have to take
something enormous to change here.

You think about
teaching children about consent.

That's actually a huge thing,

but it's something small that we can do
in our everyday lives

that is radically different
from my experience.

I think it is incredibly important
for parents, for teachers,

for administrators, for adults,
to understand how this happens.

To be able to identify
the stages of grooming

and to feel confident
and empowered to say something.

I don't really know
what's next after this either,

but I don't feel like I'm done yet.

It's not really
what I want to do with my life, but...

to feel fulfilled within myself,
like I can't...

I can't put it down.

I feel like there's still
so much more to do.

Hopefully, by telling your story,
you can inspire other girls.

You can raise awareness.
You can create a vocabulary.

You might even be able
to change some laws.

No matter how you come forward,

it's a difficult, painful,
ugly, messy process.

It... it stays with you
for your whole life.