NIC instructor faces charges
A North Idaho College instructor and former Coeur d’Alene physician has been charged with a felony for allegedly abusing her daughter.
Cheri Corley Zao, 48, is accused of physically and verbally abusing her now-16-year-old adopted daughter.
In one instance, Zao allegedly pushed the girl against a wall in NIC’s Health Sciences Building, put her hand against the girl’s neck and slapped her, according to Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department reports.
The girl told sheriff’s detectives that Zao then threatened to punch her.
Zao did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday, but her attorney said the charges “are unfounded.”
He said a related child protection case the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare brought against Zao was dismissed Friday.
“The judge has already dismissed that case with Health and Welfare, stating the charges had no validity and couldn’t be substantiated,” attorney Rudy Verschoor said Tuesday.
A preliminary hearing in the criminal case against Zao is scheduled for Sept. 6. She has already pleaded not guilty to the charge of felony injury to a child.
According to sheriff’s reports, the teen was adopted by Zao when she was 8 years old. The girl’s biological mother reportedly died when she was 5, and she was brought to Coeur d’Alene by her great-uncle, Zao’s stepfather, to be adopted by Zao.
The girl told detectives that Zao, whom she described as “completely unstable and unpredictable” had “punched, slapped, choked and thrown things” at her.
She told detectives that one time she got in trouble for not cleaning the kitchen after making a snack and that Zao choked her and threw her down the stairs.
Kathleen Chamura, who described herself as Zao’s longtime friend, told investigators that the teen confided in her. She said she documented what she knew and had several letters from others who were concerned about the girl’s welfare, according to sheriff’s reports.
Dr. William Sammond wrote a letter to Child Protective Services, which was attached to the police report.
Sammond said in the letter that he had known Zao since 1995, before she married NIC instructor Peter Zao.
Sammond wrote that he had “no direct proof of physical abuse,” but that he was concerned about how Zao treated both her daughters – the girl she adopted and an older, biological daughter.
He said in the letter that he ended his friendship with Zao because of what he considered “severe” and “abusive” treatment of the older daughter.
When sheriff’s Detective Brad Maskell interviewed Zao about the charges against her, she told him she’d been falsely accused, according to his report.
She told Maskell that Chamura had a “vendetta for her” and was influencing the girl “and the others to say the things they have,” the report said.
Zao, who was a family doctor in Coeur d’Alene from 1989 until retiring in 2003, is teaching biology at NIC.
College spokesman Kent Propst declined to comment on the charges, saying it was a personnel matter.