Civil Lawsuit Proceeding Against Ex-Enfield Teacher Convicted of Sexual Assault

ENFIELD, CT - Nearly four years after a Fermi High School teacher was arrested for conducting an improper relationship with a female student, a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the girl is still in process.

Judicial records available through the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch web site indicate a trial management conference has been scheduled involving counsel for the plaintiff, known as Jane Doe to protect her identity, and attorneys for former teacher Tyler Wells and the Enfield Board of Education, who are listed as co-defendants.

Wells, now 33, was arrested in July 2012 and initially charged with four counts of fourth-degree sexual assault involving at least one female student at Fermi.

In an affidavit supporting Wells' arrest, a police detective said the female victim stated around the beginning of March 2012, she was in a classroom with Wells and they exchanged cell phone numbers. They started text messaging each other, which initially were asking how each other was doing. At some point, Wells started texting messages complimenting her body.

Later that month, Wells asked the girl if she wanted to make out, but she told him no because she was tired. A few days later, she asked Wells if he wanted to make out, and he said, “Really?” The victim said they went to the back of the room and began kissing, and he fondled her, the affidavit said.

In her statement, the girl said the two had about 30 encounters “making out.” In some of the encounters, he stuck his hand down her pants, and on one occasion, he put her hand on his groin, the affidavit said.

In April 2012, the girl got a new iPhone and continued to exchange text messages with Wells, but he eventually asked her to delete all of the messages to be safe. The two stopped their encounters in May because of rumors circulating in the school, the affidavit said.

On June 14 of that year, Enfield police began investigating a report from a teacher at Fermi High School that two students had informed him that another teacher was having a relationship with a female student.

Wells, a social studies teacher at Fermi for three years at the time, was placed on paid administrative leave that same night by then-director of human resources Christopher Drezek, now the deputy superintendent of schools.

Following his arrest, Wells submitted his resignation from the Enfield school system. Nearly a year later, in August 2013, he pleaded no contest to two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, and received a two-year suspended prison sentence, two years probation and 10 years on the Connecticut sex offender registry.

Along with probation and sex offender status, Wells was ordered to comply with a number of other requirements of the court, including: psychiatric and mental health treatment; having no contact with the victim or the victim's family; surrendering his teacher's license; owning or possessing no weapons; possessing no sexually-stimulating material or frequenting an establishment that does; and submitting to random searches of his person, home, computer, car or other personal property.

A check of the Connecticut sex offender registry indicates Wells has moved to Austin, Texas.

Shortly after Wells' sentencing, a civil lawsuit was filed by attorneys for the girl, naming Wells and the Enfield Board of Education as co-defendants.

The Hartford law firm of Rome, Clifford, Katz & Koerner, representing the girl, successfully obtained an order allowing her to be referenced as "Jane Doe" to protect her identity.

In the suit, the plaintiff seeks more than $15,000 in damages, alleging that her family has incurred “substantial expenses” for psychological care, and she has sustained mental suffering which may continue.

The school board is named as co-defendant due to claims of negligence, alleging the board “failed to respond to and act upon warnings and concerns raised by others within the school as to the nature and extent” of Wells’ relationship with the student, the lawsuit says.

A trial management conference has been scheduled for early 2017, according to judicial records, followed by jury selection and trial.

Rome, Clifford, Katz & Koerner has not yet responded to an email from Enfield Patch.

Patch file photo credit: Tim Jensen