303 Taxi declined an on-camera interview and would not answer questions about how Jean Juste became one of their school drivers.Ī spokeswoman provided a general written statement, saying, in part: "We have made improvements to our internal controls and procedures for monitoring drivers in this program, and we are confident that our improved process will ensure the safety of all school children above all else."Īnother 303 school driver is Laura Mitchell. NBC Chicago provided Juste’s criminal information to the Secretary of State’s office, which has now launched an investigation into 303’s hiring practices. Yet he was granted a school permit to drive schoolchildren for 303 Taxi, one of the two largest providers of school taxi services in the Chicago suburbs. A few years later he was convicted on federal charges of smuggling and selling cocaine. In 1994, he was convicted on one count of sexual assault, and certified in Cook County criminal court as a child sex offender. Jean Juste was arrested in 1993 on 19 separate counts of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl over a 15-month period, starting when she was just 13 years old. But his name appears on the drivers’ lists of eight of the districts surveyed by NBC Chicago. By all accounts, he never should have been granted a permit to drive school children. One school driver we do know about is Jean Juste. But of the 46 suburban districts NBC Chicago found using taxis, fully half admitted, in writing, that they have no idea who is driving their children. Several had violations of probation or orders of protection.īy law, every school district which uses cabs is supposed to maintain a list of their permitted drivers. In all, NBC Chicago found 66 school cab drivers - about one out of every 10 drivers on the school lists we examined - arrested or convicted of such crimes as aggravated battery, possession of a controlled substance, firearms violations, assault, I.D. Shedd Aquarium will extend after-hours free admission program "Whether it’s a cab or a bus, it doesn’t really matter," he said "The cargo is the same: The children." He says Illinois’ requirements are among the strictest in the nation. Not just any cab driver is allowed to transport students, according to Terry Montalbano of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. It’s now a multi-million-dollar industry for such suburban cab companies as American Taxi Dispatch and 303 Taxi. Local taxi companies have met that need with special "school service" programs which provide regular taxi service to schools and districts across Chicago. The reasons make sense: Special-needs students often have such individualized schedules that it’s not always practical to transport them by bus. NBC 5 Investigates surveyed 73 school districts throughout suburban Chicago, focusing primarily on special education districts and cooperatives, to learn how many use taxicabs to transport their students to and from school. But a six-month investigation by NBC Chicago has found that dozens of those school taxi drivers have criminal histories, ranging from public indecency and domestic battery, to soliciting a prostitute and even child sexual assault. Every day, hundreds of Chicago-area children are transported to school not in cars or buses, but alone with cab drivers, in taxicabs hired by school districts.
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