Former Trumbull Student Sues District After Sex Assault Claim

Update: The last development in the case was a settlement conference in November, according to federal court records. The Board of Education denied the allegations, according to a court filing.

TRUMBULL, CT — A former Trumbull High School student and her family are suing the school district, alleging that not enough was done to stop an untenable situation where she had to attend school with a student who allegedly sexually assaulted her, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

The student referred to as Jane Doe in court documents told her mother around Thanksgiving 2017 that a male classmate had sexually harassed her, according to the lawsuit. She was a 9th grade student at the time. Her mother contacted school administrators who said they were keeping an eye on the student, according to the lawsuit.

In October 2018, Doe told her mother that the harassment wasn’t the full story and that her classmate had picked her up near the school in his car and raped her, according to the lawsuit. She was now in the same geometry class as the classmate.

Doe family lawyer Gregory Smith told Patch that anyone like Jane Doe who comes forward in these types of situations is of strong character because it often means having to face grilling defense attorney questions during depositions that focus on the most intimate details of assaults. In addition, the family is paying for private schooling because Jane Doe doesn’t want to go back to Trumbull High School while the perpetrator is there, he said.

“In a lawsuit like this, they are looking for two things… they are never going to get any recognition from the school district, even if they take it to trial and a jury finds in their favor,” Smith said. “They have to settle for something they can get, some kind of monetary compensation as the next best thing… and the satisfaction of knowing by pursuing this they’ve made it safer for other girls.”

Doe’s mother met with school staff and asked that the classmate be kept away from her daughter. School staff also talked to Doe and told the family that they had a legal obligation to inform police about the rape allegation. The family spoke with a school resource officer and informed him that they wanted to press criminal charges, according to the lawsuit.

The Trumbull Board of Education didn’t immediately respond to request for comment Friday and no one could be immediately reached for comment at the Trumbull Police Department.

School officials said that the male student should not be moved out of Doe’s geometry class and that their desks could be moved farther apart or that Doe could be removed from the class, according to the lawsuit.

Doe’s mother agreed to have her do her geometry work in the guidance office, according to the lawsuit. School officials also informed the student to stay away from Doe, however, Doe saw the student every day for a week in the hallways and in the cafeteria.

Doe’s mother also told school administrators that other students had begun to harass and threaten Doe over the situation. The student also slapped Doe in class and Doe’s mother was later told that there were consequences for the student, according to the lawsuit.

Doe didn’t go to school for several days from November to January and on Jan. 8 withdrew from school. She enrolled in a private school.

“Jane was the object of repeated verbal harassment that went beyond simple teasing and
name-calling,” Smith wrote in the lawsuit complaint. “Any reasonable person in the same position would have found it as severely hostile and abusive as she did. These were not isolated incidents of harassment; Jane reasonably believed she would suffer from them as long as she attended the school.”

The school came up with a support/protection plan for Doe that called for her to have access to school administrators and that security would notify administration immediately if Doe and the student were seen together and that Doe would contact school administrators immediately if her classmate tried to contact her in any form. The lawsuit contends that the plan was ineffective and wasn’t changed once that became clear.