SALEM, Mass. — Teachers who worked with Daniel Hakim said he held physical education classes in the dark, was “just too close” with the elementary students and would walk the halls with his arm over girls’ shoulders.
“Almost like a high school kid walking down the hall with his girlfriend,” a fellow teacher told investigators, according to court documents.
Hakim, 38, a North Andover resident and former teacher at the Saltonstall School in Salem, Mass., is charged with 32 counts of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child under age 14.
He is accused of assaulting 12 girls between the ages of 6 and 8 and is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 13.
According to recently filed court papers, teachers who worked with Hakim felt his actions were “odd, potentially unsafe and unusual and strange.”
One teacher said she had concerns about Hakim “as soon as he began working at the Saltonstall School.”
She said his odd behavior “lasted throughout his employment there,” involving her feeling “he was just too close with the kids, too hands-on, too much picking them up, too much like sitting on the grass with them all around them or in his lap.”
She reportedly told investigators “that it was just too much,” that the defendant was “too tight” with the kids and that she had complained on multiple occasions about the level of physical contact that Hakim had with the kids, according to court documents.
Hakim’s defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss indictments against Hakim. A judge has not yet ruled on the motion.
Included in the paperwork are accounts of teachers’ concerns. However, the defense attorneys noted Hakim was never charged for the “observed conduct” and that none of those details appear in any reports by the Department of Children and Families and “apparently” not even any school disciplinary action was taken against Hakim.
In the eyes of two adults who worked with him, Hakim “was unusual and strange, who touched the kids too much and who treated third-and fourth-grade girls like his girlfriends,” according to the motion.
“In other words, the evidence appears to have been admitted for its propensity value, inviting ‘the grand jury to indict him improperly on the propensity to commit crime,’” according to the motion to dismiss filed by defense attorneys David Yannetti and Michael Chinman.
Five reasons to dismiss the indictments are listed in the motion, including the integrity of the grand jury was impaired, the grand jury presentation lacked probable cause and a prosecutor was present while the grand jury deliberated before handing down indictments.
The paperwork also includes a reference to January 2018, when Hakim was still working at the Saltonstall School, where there had been a prior report to DCF “alleging inappropriate conduct.”
“Specifically, the report was filed by an adult who overhead (redacted) saying something to other children ‘about whether they remembered the time in gym when she bumped her head and (Hakim) gave her all those kisses, and if she remembered the time she was sitting and the teacher slid her hand down the back of her pants by accident, and that she was overhead saying she hates when he leans her on the wall, presses on her and puts his knee on her,’” according to the motion.
The motion indicates DCF conducted an interview and the allegations were “unsupported.”
Hakim remains free to leave his home during daytime hours. Bail of $200,000 cash was set.
A Superior Court judge previously ruled Hakim, who was on pretrial home confinement, could leave his house wearing his GPS monitor. He has to be home, however, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., according to the ruling.
Hakim is not allowed to enter the center of the city of Salem or the towns of Swampscott, North Attleboro or Walpole, according to court records.
Also, Hakim cannot have any unsupervised contact with children under 18. He is not allowed to work without the approval of the court, the judge ruled.
School officials, the Department of Children and Families, and Salem police were aware of multiple accusations of inappropriate behavior by Hakim in 2018, when he was terminated from the school and his teaching license suspended.
He later formally surrendered his teaching license in 2020.
Prior to working in the Salem Public Schools, Hakim had been employed by several other school districts and schools.
He worked at the Brooks School in North Andover in 2015 and 2016 in a “Teen Challenge” program.
He also worked as a health teacher at the Shawsheen Elementary School in Wilmington from 2013 until 2015, and for the Collaborative for Educational Services from 2009 until 2013.
Hakim is due back in court on Jan. 6 for a final pre-trial conference.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill and Threads at jillyharma.