Judge sentences ex-Providence school administrator who fondled teen's foot. What to know

WARWICK – “You touched the wrong foot!” bellowed the father of the teenage boy whose foot a Providence schools official fondled in a gym three years ago.

The East Greenwich father addressed the now ex-schools administrator, Olayinka Alege, 42, at his sentencing Friday after being found guilty of simple assault and battery on the then-15-year-old boy on April 20, 2021.

The father credited his son with showing true courage in taking the stand in Alege’s three trials, including the last in which Alege, representing himself, subjected the teenager to five hours of cross examination. He faulted Alege for blaming everyone but himself and for repeatedly publicly sharing his minor son’s name and the family’s address in social media posts and emails to Rhode Island lawyers and the media.

“Did you think about what that could have done to him? No because you’re sick,” the father said. The Journal is not identifying the teenager or his family because the boy was a minor at the time of the crime.

“Let this be a lesson to you, Alege. You’re not the victim. You never have been,” the father said.

Judge hands down sentence

Superior Court Judge Luis M. Matos sentenced Alege, who now lives in Florida, to a one-year suspended term with probation.

While acknowledging the former administrator’s otherwise clean criminal record, John Malloy, the prosecutor, had asked the judge to sentence Alege to one year in prison with six months to serve.

Malloy argued that Alege had revictimized the teenager through the aggressive five-hour cross examination and had launched a barrage of baseless allegations against the victim and his family, the prosecutors, the Warwick police and the court itself.

Three trials ultimately leads to guilty verdict

A jury in December found Alege guilty of simple assault for removing the 15-year-old’s sneaker at The Edge Fitness Club and massaging the teen’s foot without his consent.

In 2022, District Court Judge Anthony Capraro found Alege guilty and issued a one-year filing in the case, meaning the case would’ve been removed from Alege's record in a year as long as he obeyed the law. He was ordered not to contact the teenager or his family.

The teenager testified about completing a round of leg raises at the gym, only to have a man he had never seen before move “uncomfortably” close to him.

The man, whom he later learned was Alege, questioned him about his low-top Converse sneakers and asked to see his shoes. The casual conversation morphed into something “weird,” he later told his father.

He described Alege grabbing his foot and removing the shoe without asking before massaging his right foot up and down with both hands.

Alege appealed Capraro's ruling to Superior Court and the jury at that second trial was unable to reach a verdict, prompting a third trial.

Alege came to Providence schools from Florida

Alege was hired in Providence as an assistant superintendent in June 2020 to work with middle school and high school principals as a district-level administrator. He came from the public school district in Hillsborough County, Florida, the same district then-Superintendent Harrison Peters had worked at.

An Orlando newspaper reported in 2009 that Alege, an assistant principal at a high school, had been accused of "popping" boys' toes as a form of discipline.

Five boys told sheriff's deputies Alege had "asked them on numerous occasions to take off a shoe and sock behind closed doors, and allow him to 'pop' their toes," the Sun-Sentinel reported.

The East Greenwich teenager’s father on Friday said he was sickened that Alege had ever worked as an educator and hoped he never would again.

“You left a trail of victims,” he said.

Matos ordered Alege not to contact the teenager or his family.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Judge sentences ex-city school administrator who fondled teen's foot