School district to pay $102M to students abused by teacher
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A jury has awarded $102.5 million to two women who sued a Northern California school district over what they said was officials’ failure to stop a middle school teacher from sexually grooming and abusing them as minors. Parents had repeatedly complained about the former music teacher, who was sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
The two plaintiffs said they were repeatedly abused by former music teacher Samuel Neipp while students at a San Jose middle school starting in 2009 for one student and 2014 for the other, The Mercury News reported. The women, identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, were awarded $65 million and $37.5 million in damages, respectively, announced Tuesday in the Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Lauren Cerri, an attorney who represented Doe 1, said the verdict shows community intolerance for a school district that puts its reputation and image above the safety of children.
“Parents who complained year after year, that he’s a predator, they didn’t do a thing, and should have fired him years before,” Cerri told the Mercury News. “This verdict holds them fully accountable, and says this should have never happened and was so easily preventable.”
Neipp was arrested in 2017 after Doe 1 told police that he had threatened to post nude images of her online. She told police that starting around 2014, when she was 13 and a student at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose, Neipp sent her text messages saying he found her attractive and spent time with her alone in his office, later engaging in sex acts with her. She also said Neipp continued to sexually abuse her as a high school student when she visited the Dartmouth campus.
Doe 2 contacted police after seeing news about Neipp’s arrest. She told police that around 2009 when she...