Boston man charged with child assault while driving Suffolk student

Fausto Abreu, 60, of Boston, was charged Friday with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14 after he was hired to drive a child to and from school in Suffolk County. The case immediately raises the question of how an adult entrusted with a child’s daily transportation was screened, supervised and allowed that access in the first place.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced the charges. Raymond A. Tierney, the county’s district attorney, was elected on November 2, 2021, and assumed office on January 1, 2022, placing the case under a prosecutor’s office that has emphasized child protection and public safety throughout his tenure.

Suffolk County sits on the easternmost end of Long Island in southeastern New York, and its Department of Social Services oversees Family and Children Services and Child Protective Services. Those systems are meant to serve at-risk children, adults and families, making the Abreu case a reminder that the county’s most basic safeguards depend on what happens before an adult is ever put in close contact with a child.

The arrest also lands in a county still defined by the aftermath of the Thomas Valva case. In November 2024, County Executive Ed Romaine, Tierney and other officials announced comprehensive changes to Suffolk’s Child Protective Services system, a public acknowledgment that failures in oversight can have devastating consequences for families.

Abreu’s charges do not answer whether any school transportation vetting, background screening or agency oversight broke down, but they sharpen the same concern that has followed Suffolk’s CPS reforms: whether county institutions can identify danger early enough to keep children safe. For parents across Suffolk, the immediate issue is not just one arrest, but whether the systems meant to guard children are doing their job before harm occurs.