Lawsuit Alleges NJ District Ignored Signs Teacher Was Molesting Students

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A New Jersey man has filed a lawsuit against the Toms River Regional School District, alleging the district knew that one of its teachers was molesting students and did nothing about it.

The man, who is not identified in the lawsuit, says Shawn C. Lee molested him from 2005 to 2007, when the man was a student at Toms River Intermediate East and at Toms River High School East. The incidents took place both in school and off school grounds, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in August in Essex County.

Lee, 49, was arrested in 2019 and charged in connection with a 2007 sexual assault on a 16-year-old victim. He was a social studies teacher at Toms River Intermediate East at the time of the incident. He also was a wrestling and tennis coach, according to the lawsuit. Lee was hired by the district in 2005, during the Ritacco administration.

William Burns, attorney for the Toms River Regional Schools, said the district received a copy of the lawsuit from another news outlet.

“As the matter is pending in court the district will not comment on active litigation,” Burns said.

Lee is not a defendant in the lawsuit. A message left for Robert Wolf, Lee’s attorney in the criminal case, was not immediately returned. The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said the case is awaiting presentation to a grand jury.

The lawsuit alleges there were “numerous times where Lee was directly observed to be inappropriately interacting with students and, in particular, male students,” and says the district did not intervene to stop it.

It alleges Lee groomed the student and others, through lunches in his classroom where he would show the boys gay pornography and would start sexual conversations with them, including discussions about the size of their genitals. He would give them cash and straight As, the lawsuit alleges.

“Faculty members, administration and students alike all saw Lee continue to have daily lunches with minor boys and did nothing to stop what was inappropriate conduct with his students,” the lawsuit alleges.

It escalated to sexual assaults that included two incidents in Lee’s car on school grounds, where the man alleges Lee performed oral sex on him in September 2007. There also were incidents near the victim’s home, the lawsuit alleges.

The man’s family moved out of the Toms River Regional School district after that, but the lawsuit alleges Lee continued to contact him, driving to Nutley and assaulting the man while in a car at a local park.

The lawsuit says the man reported the abuse to Toms River police in 2013, but no charges were filed at that time. In 2019, the criminal investigation was revived and led to Lee’s arrest. The lawsuit says police contacted the victim to get a new statement; an NJ.com report says the investigation was revived after Lee contacted the victim again and tried to resume the relationship.

Lee resigned from the Toms River schools in September 2013, after he pleaded guilty to a municipal charge of supplying alcohol to minors. An NJ.com report said Lee bought apple vodka and beer for a 16-year-old and 17-year-old in Seaside Heights when he worked as a parking attendant in the summer of 2012 and then drank with the teens in his car. He was ordered to pay $250 in fines after pleading guilty in August 2013, the report said.

The lawsuit alleges the Toms River Schools “failed to take reasonable steps and failed to implement reasonable safeguards to avoid acts of unlawful sexual conduct in the future by Lee, including but not limited to, preventing or avoiding placement of Lee in functions or environments in which contact with children was an inherent part of those functions or environments.”

“Furthermore, at no time during the periods of time alleged did Defendants have in place a system or procedure to supervise and/or monitor employees, volunteers, representatives, or agents to ensure they did not molest or abuse minors in the care of the Defendants,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges additional charges have been filed against Lee relating to additional victims but the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office did not answer a question as to whether additional victims have been identified.

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