Julious Johnican, a former first-year teacher at Indianapolis’s George Washington Carver Montessori School 87, pleaded guilty on Aug. 4 to felony neglect of a dependent, a Level 6 felony under Indiana law carrying a sentencing range of six months to two and a half years, according to WFYI.
He had originally pleaded not guilty, then changed his plea hoping the court would reduce the conviction to a misdemeanor; Marion Superior Court Judge Clark Rogers refused and kept the felony, sentencing him Sept. 24 to two years in the Indiana Department of Correction, with credit for one day already served. The case centers on cellphone video, which attorneys say Johnican recorded, showing a seven-year-old boy being repeatedly hit by another student while Johnican encouraged it.
The boy’s family says the footage surfaced by accident when Johnican tried to show it to them during a parent-teacher conference, mistaking it for a different clip. Attorney Tammy Meyer, who represents the family, said Johnican could be heard on the recording asking, “Are you done yet?” as the attack continued. “It’s shocking,” she said.
What the family’s civil lawsuit alleges beyond the video
The boy’s mother, Corrie Horan, said after the sentencing that the outcome brought relief. “Just like a giant cloud of heavy stress has just been taken off of us,” she said. The boy, then in second grade, has disabilities including sensory sensitivities and an executive-function disorder, according to the family’s civil lawsuit, which separately alleges the video wasn’t an isolated incident and that Johnican orchestrated similar attacks over roughly three months.
Those broader claims remain civil allegations, not part of the criminal case Johnican pleaded guilty to. Neither Indiana’s Department of Child Services nor the school district notified police or the state’s teacher licensing office when the allegations first surfaced, a breakdown that went against DCS’s own policy, according to the outlet’s earlier reporting. Superintendent Johnson said at the time the district “fell short” in informing parents.
Attorney Catherine Michael said prosecuting individual teachers hasn’t fixed the underlying problem. “We keep seeing the teachers going away if they’re successfully prosecuted, but we’re not seeing the necessary changes within the school district that will stop this from happening,” she said, adding that better training and supervision “isn’t that costly. We’re just choosing not to do it.”
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement that Johnican “abused the trust placed in him as an educator.” IPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment; Johnican’s attorneys said he had no further comment. A separate federal civil lawsuit, filed in 2025 against Johnican, the school board and the school’s principal, alleges gross negligence and failure to report suspected abuse; that case remains pending and its claims haven’t been proven in court.
Published: Sep 25, 2026 04:04 pm