EXCLUSIVE: Adopted daughter accuses St. Paul teachers union president of ignoring sexual abuse in their home

Content advisory: this article contains graphic details about sexual abuse

After reading an article about her adoptive father’s child sex abuse conviction, Destiny VanDassor contacted Alpha News to share what she claims is the missing truth: her adoptive mother, Leah VanDassor—now president of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators—was not only physically abusive, but knew about sexual abuse happening in their home and did nothing.

In an interview with Alpha News, Destiny, now 29, alleged that her adoptive father, convicted sex offender Russ VanDassor, began sexually abusing her shortly after she was adopted—and Leah, then a St. Paul middle school teacher and mandated reporter, ignored her pleas for help.

Police reports obtained by Alpha News corroborate key elements of Destiny’s account, including allegations of both physical and sexual abuse inside the VanDassor household. Yet despite multiple reports to authorities, no charges were ever filed—which Destiny believes shines a light on just how badly the system let her and her siblings down.

Destiny’s adoption and the VanDassor family

Destiny said she was adopted from foster care around age seven, along with her two younger biological siblings. She said the VanDassors had already adopted an older boy and girl, making five adopted children—all Black—who, Destiny alleges, were part of a curated public image.

“We were five African American children, and I think there was this image Russ and Leah were trying to uphold, like, ‘Look at us, helping these unfortunate Black kids.’ I don’t believe they adopted us just out of the kindness of their hearts. I think they had their own agenda,” said Destiny.

Allegations of sexual and physical abuse

“Russ started sexually abusing me about a year after I was adopted, and it went on for years,” Destiny alleges. She described a recurring episode of abuse, alleging: “I would be downstairs watching TV and he would come lay behind me on the couch and put his hand inside my pants and rub my nipples, and he also had me watching porn.”

Destiny claims she told her adoptive mother on many occasions what Russ was doing to her.

“Leah absolutely knew,” Destiny alleges. “I told her he was touching me, and she’d always say, ‘Well, did you talk to him about it first?’ But my thing was, why would I talk to him if I’m telling you what he’s doing to me?”

Destiny recalled a time when she and her siblings—who she says were also being abused by Russ—allegedly found printed child pornography and fictional stories about a man having sex with a child, which she says they turned over to Leah. “She never did anything, never said a word,” Destiny claims.

Destiny claims Leah was physically abusive

Destiny contends that the abuse in the home wasn’t limited to Russ. She alleges that Leah was physically abusive to her and her siblings, claiming that Leah often slapped, punched, and kicked the children when they were misbehaving.

“I always had bruises and marks on me from getting hit by her,” alleges Destiny, who recalled a time when Leah was upset that Destiny didn’t want to clean her room.

“I was sitting on the floor crying and she kicked a music stand across the room and it hit me hard between my legs,” claims Destiny. “I started crying louder and she threw me in the bathtub and told me to shut up and soak it. And that’s just one incident—there were so many.”

Destiny says that by her early teens, the alleged sexual and physical abuse led her to self-harm, and she searched for any excuse to avoid being at home.

“That’s why I signed up for every sport, so I could stay at school longer. And when I stayed with friends, I’d always ask if I could stay one more night. I didn’t want to go back. I wasn’t safe there.”

Police report details 2007 allegations

Destiny says an incident involving her slightly older adoptive sister led to a Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) investigation where the first documented abuse allegations were made.

According to a 2007 police report obtained by Alpha News, a staff member at Central Lutheran elementary school—where the VanDassor children attended—contacted police after a female student reported being physically abused by her adoptive mother, identified in the report as Leah VanDassor.

“She told me that her mother had punched her in the face two times,” the student said in a statement to police.

The officer’s report noted minor swelling and an abrasion on the girl’s face.

“She said her mother had also kicked her on her right leg and left a bruise. I saw a bruise on the front of her leg, at about the shin area,” the report continues.

The girl told officers that her mother had been physically abusing her since third grade and that this was not the first time she had marks on her body, according to the report. She also said the abuse extended to her siblings, stating, “they all are frequently hit and marks are left as a result,” the report explains.

In addition to the alleged physical abuse, the girl said all of her siblings told her Russ had been inappropriately touching them “on their private parts,” according to the report.

She also told the officer that she had found “lots of pornography” on Russ’s computer, the report says. The girl added that one of the boys in the house frequently slept in the same bed as Russ and that Russ would enter the bathroom while he was showering, according to the report.

“They pulled us out of class,” Destiny said of that time. “I told child protective services everything.”

Destiny recalled Russ—who worked as a cook at the school—“throwing a fit” after learning his adoptive children had been questioned without his permission.

The report states the girl was afraid to report the alleged abuse, noting that she “seemed very reluctant to talk with me … she did not want her parents to know police were called because she would be in trouble with them.”

A couple weeks later, the investigating officers followed up with a Ramsey County Child Protection Services (CPS) worker, who had interviewed the children at their school.

According to the police report, the CPS worker confirmed she had seen a healing bruise on the girl’s face, consistent with earlier reports. She said she spoke with Leah VanDassor, who denied hitting or kicking the child but said she grabbed her by the arm “when she was not being compliant,” the report says.

The CPS worker also told police that another child in the home alleged that she was sexually touched by her adoptive father, Russ VanDassor, two years prior, according to the report. That child was scheduled to be seen at the Midwest Children’s Resource Center (MCRC), and the resulting report was to be forwarded to police.

The police report says CPS also noted that Central Lutheran elementary school, which has since closed, had “leaked information about the nature and type of allegations” to the family, potentially undermining the investigation.

However, according to the report, several days later, CPS contacted police again and stated that the children had been seen at MCRC but did not disclose any abuse during their evaluations. So, the worker said she would not be making a maltreatment finding but intended to offer the family support services, citing adoption-related “adjustment difficulties.”

After that, the investigation into the alleged sexual and physical abuse appears to have stopped. Destiny contends that she never recanted or waivered in her allegations.

Police report details 2009 abuse allegation 

A 2009 police report obtained by Alpha News was generated after an off-duty officer at a Walmart encountered a VanDassor girl and a friend in a shoplifting incident involving low-value items.

The names of the minors in the reports have been redacted, but someone who was at the Walmart told police that Russ VanDassor had been “f—ing” the girl and police needed to do something about it, according to the report.

The officer then forwarded the information to the sex crimes unit and police paid a visit to the VanDassor home.

According to the report, one of the girls told police that she previously reported to St. Paul Public School personnel that Russ VanDassor came into her room and sexually assaulted her.

However, according to the report, the officer stated, “Russell Van Dassor and his wife told me that the incident was investigated by Sgt. [Paul] Schnell and the incident was investigated by Ramsey County Child Protection and there were no charges filed.”

According to the report, the girl told the officer that “Russell Van Dassor has not sexually touched her since” and that the family was in group counseling.

The case was marked pended due to “solvability factors” and was classified as a sex offense—specifically incest—but did not result in an arrest.

Destiny’s escape and Russ’s 2019 conviction

Destiny says her breaking point came at 16, when she alleges that she walked in on Russ molesting one of her younger siblings in the child’s bedroom.

“I screamed, yelled I’d burn their house down with them in it, and I ran away,” she said.

Destiny reconnected with her biological mother in Illinois, where she now lives with her young son and works in healthcare.

She says she hasn’t spoken to Leah or Russ since she left, and always believed that one day Russ’s abuse would come to light.

“I knew in my heart he would get caught, and about three years ago I ended up Googling him and saw he had been arrested,” said Destiny.

Alpha News previously reported on Russ VanDassor’s felony conviction for attempted criminal sexual conduct with an 11-year-old boy in 2018, which occurred at the home he shared with Leah. He was sentenced to 72 months in prison.

A criminal complaint described the disturbing details which included Russ pulling an 11-year-old boy’s pants down and asking if he could “suck [his] penis.” Police also found photos of the boy with his genitals exposed on Russ’s cellphone. January 2020 court documents filed by Russ’s attorney in that case state that “Leah Van Dassor, Mr. Van Dassor’s wife, remains supportive of him, despite her hurt and confusion regarding the offense.”

“They are divorced, but she describes their relationship as ‘amicable.’ She continues to visit him at the jail and speak with him over the phone. If sentenced to probation, Ms. Van Dassor wants to be there as a support to him through treatment and rehabilitation, despite her desire to remain divorced due to his actions during this offense and the pain it has caused her and their family,” the documents say.

Destiny claims that a failure to act on the alleged abuse in her home allowed it to continue for years, ultimately leading to the attempted assault of the young boy.

“He only got a couple years in prison and that doesn’t even begin to cover the trauma that he put me and the others through. I still suffer with depression today because of all the trauma.”

Leah’s career on the rise

Leah, who was married to Russ from 1995 to 2019, filed for divorce before he was sentenced to prison. “Her career was taking off, that’s why she finally divorced him,” Destiny alleges.

Leah went on to be elected SPFE union president in 2021.

She recently made headlines with statements calling Republicans “authoritarian” and “fascist,” and accusing them of targeting BIPOC and LGBTQ communities. She also called the Trump administration “dangerous” with a goal of “tearing families apart.”

As for Leah’s continued role in education leadership, Destiny said she’s baffled.

“How can parents trust she has their kids’ best interests at heart when children who looked to her as a mother were failed and put in harm’s way under her watch?” she argues. “She’s just as guilty as he is because she did nothing.”

Why were no charges filed?

No charges were ever filed against Leah or Russ VanDassor for the allegations described in the police reports.

A police report from 2013, obtained by Alpha News, offers insight into why the case may have stalled.

In early 2013, Destiny’s biological mother, living in Chicago, contacted St. Paul police to report that Destiny had been physically and sexually abused while living in the VanDassor home, according to the report. The responding officer opened an investigation.

Ramsey County Child Protection arranged for the two youngest VanDassor children, still living in the home, to be interviewed at MCRC. According to the report, neither child disclosed any abuse. The officer noted that although there were previous allegations, none had resulted in charges, and that without new disclosures or evidence, the case lacked the “solvability factors” necessary to proceed.

As for why her younger siblings didn’t disclose abuse, Destiny has a theory. She alleges Russ would routinely buy toys in exchange for their silence. She claims one of the siblings told her they would “get lots of toys if they didn’t say anything about what he was doing.”

Destiny also alleges Leah would threaten the children, warning that if they spoke out, they could be sent to a home worse than theirs.

However, Destiny maintains that none of that should have mattered because she—and her older adoptive sister—”told everyone.”

“I have always stood behind my story,” she said through tears. “The system failed us. There were a lot of people that I told, that we all told, and for us to have go through all that questioning with police, CPS, DCFS, and all these therapists and to not see results—it’s as if no one cared and everyone was trying to cover it up,” said Destiny, who plans to change her last name back to what it was before she was adopted.

Now a mother herself, Destiny struggles to understand how more wasn’t done.

“I’m trying to make sense of it—how a mandated reporter, a foster mom, an adoptive mom, hears a child say, ‘he’s molesting me,’ and doesn’t do anything about it,” she alleges. “How did he get away with it for years—even after I spoke up—and no one did anything?”

No response from Leah VanDassor, teachers union 

Alpha News reached out to Leah VanDassor, the Saint Paul Federation of Educators, and St. Paul Public Schools about the allegations, but they did not respond.

A spokesperson for the St. Paul Police Department told Alpha News that the cases cannot be reopened due to the statute of limitations in place at the time the incidents were reported.

While current laws no longer impose a statute of limitations for similar alleged crimes, the department is required to follow the guidelines that were in effect at the time of the original reports.

However, police said they are still open to taking new reports from anyone involved and are willing to offer support or connect individuals with available resources.

Ramsey County acknowledges ‘past shortcomings’ in handling sexual abuse cases

In a May 7, 2025 press conference, Ramsey County leaders acknowledged past shortcomings in how sexual assault cases were handled and announced renewed efforts to improve. Their renewed initiative includes investments in culturally specific training, community engagement, and victim-centered advocacy. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the county is “reaffirming and strengthening” its commitment to ensuring survivors are heard, believed, and supported.

Leah VanDassor has not been charged with any crime.