Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 18, 1994                   TAG: 9405180090
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DIRECTOR SAYS CHILD FONDLED HIM

But Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Joseph Clark said he could not understand how Peter L. Williams, director of the Hollins Park Preschool, could have allowed it to happen. Clark sent to a grand jury a felony charge against Williams of taking indecent liberties under custodial care.

The child, who is under the age of 5, took the stand but had difficulty testifying. She nodded her head when asked if she was scared and if she was having a hard time remembering the incident.

The child did say that when she went home the day it happened, she went straight to her father and told him about it, then to her mother.

Clark asked that no information be reported that could identify the child.

Roanoke County Police Detective Debbie Hogan testified that she discussed the incident with Williams several days after a complaint was filed by the child's parents. Williams told her that the child, who had been having trouble sleeping during nap time, was taken into the preschool's first-aid room, Hogan said. Williams told her that no one else was in the room.

Williams, 66, said the child asked him to play a game called "Exy," Hogan said. Williams then told her that the child started to pull down her panties. Williams cautioned her against doing so and asked where she'd gotten the idea, Hogan said. Williams said the child told him she'd seen it on television, Hogan said.

Hogan testified that Williams said the child then unzipped his pants and grabbed his penis. He said he then asked the child whether she'd ever done that kind of thing with anyone else, to which the child replied "no," Hogan said.

Williams wrote a letter to himself documenting the incident and sealed it in an envelope marked "secret report," Hogan said.

Hogan said she obtained the charge against Williams the day after their discussion. He was arrested March 31 and released on bond.

Williams testified that the child had been telling "stories" several weeks before the incident and that he was concerned that the child was having problems.

He allowed her to continue her behavior during the incident out of "my own innate curiosity," he testified.

If he let the child act out, Williams said, "I would get the evidence I needed. I asked her if she did this with somebody else.

"If the child was having problems, it was an opportunity for me to pursue it. I got no sexual gratification from it."

Williams' attorney, Marc Small, asked that the charge be reduced to a misdemeanor, arguing that Williams had not acted with lascivious intent. Clark denied the motion.

"I cannot understand why you would let her proceed that far, unless you were acting with intent," Clark said.

Williams, who opened the preschool about three years ago, surrendered his operating license to the Piedmont Regional office of the Virginia Department of Social Services in Roanoke on March 31. The preschool now is closed.

There have been no other complaints made against Williams by other parents, Hogan said earlier.

Williams, who had previous occupations as a bondsman and a private investigator, had been living in Roanoke by himself but has family in Virginia Beach, whom he visited on weekends.