Redlands Unified School District settles child sexual abuse case
The Redlands Unified School District has settled another child sexual abuse case, the victim's attorneys announced on Monday.
The Manly, Stewart and Finaldi law firm said the school district has handed $45.5 million to settle 16 sexual abuse lawsuits from former students. The district has not admitted any guilt in any of the cases. The firm said they have eight more cases pending.
"Redlands Unified School District has a sordid history of enabling and ignoring sexual assaults on students by at least 15 predators during the past 20 years and this is the latest example," said the victim's attorney Saul Wolf.
This specific settlement related to the alleged sexual abuse perpetrated by former Clement Middle School teacher Timothy Rochester. He allegedly sexually harassed, assaulted and abused the victim in 2003. The complaint claimed that the administration investigated the alleged but failed to take any action such as removing him from teaching, reporting him to law enforcement or separating him and the victim.
"Male and female students have been groomed and sexually assaulted by both male and female teachers," Wolf said. "It will not stop until the district and school officials who fail to report known abusers as required by law are held accountable by outside law enforcement agencies."
In 2022, a CBS News documentary, "Pledge of Silence," criticized how administrators handled child sexual abuse cases within the district. The CBS News documentary discovered 50 students have accused more than 25 teachers of sexual misconduct between 1999-2022. Of those cases, two of which happened in 2022, 11 were investigated by police which resulted in the arrest of nine teachers.
The investigation highlighted the case of former Redlands teacher Laura Whitehurst, who originally faced 41 counts of sex with a minor and oral copulation with a person under the age of 18. Whitehurst took a plea bargain and was convicted on six of the counts. Four of the counts involved a case where a 16-year-old boy fathered Whitehurst's child.
The documentary sparked outrage from parents. The California Department of Justice investigated the district shortly after the documentary's initial release.
According to the Department of Education, an estimated 12% of all public school students in the United States experience sexual misconduct by the time they graduate high school. This equates to over 5.7 million children being victimized by their teachers. Currently, the Department of Education is investigating 145 public school districts, including Redlands, for allegations of sexual violence.
