South Brunswick Schools Sued After Alleged 2016 Sex Assault

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — The South Brunswick School District and Board of Education were sued this July by a student who says she was sexually assaulted in a stairwell at South Brunswick High School in 2016.

Her lawsuit alleges that the South Brunswick school district was negligent in its role of keeping all its students safe while on campus. The student is a minor and her lawyer is Jeffrey Fritz, of the Philadelphia/Cherry Hill law firm Soloff & Zervanos. The lawsuit was filed July 1 in Middlesex County Superior Court.

The incident allegedly happened on February 19, 2016, when the student was a freshman at South Brunswick High. She said she was walking to class in a stairwell when she was approached and sexually assaulted by another student.

There were security cameras in that stairwell, but they were inoperable at the time of the assault, despite being "implemented, designed and used for the safety of students," the suit read.

She reported the incident, and the student who attacked her was found guilty as a juvenile delinquent, according to the suit.

However, her attacker was allowed to remain at South Brunswick High "for some time" before the case went to family court, her lawyer said.

As a result, the young woman was terrified to return to the high school for fear she would see her attacker. She ended up being homeschooled.

"You shouldn't be causing the victim to have to leave the school; you should be getting rid of the perpetrator," said Fritz. "For her to be in the same building and see her perpetrator every day is untenable."

"The main issue is the cameras were inoperable," he continued. "The cameras were supposed to be monitored by a school resource officer. If you know you have an area that's not operating, what are you doing to protect that area? You can't have areas of your school that are not protected like that."

She was humiliated, wrote her lawyer, and became depressed, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and will require ongoing psychological treatment, according to her suit.

In fact, in June of that year, she attempted suicide and was taken to the ER at St. Peter’s University Hospital "as a direct and proximate result" of the attack in the stairwell.

All students and staff should also have been educated on sexual harassment, and the district should have better policies in place on preventing sex assault, said her lawyer.

South Brunswick superintendent Scott Feder, who was not superintendent when this occurred, did not respond to Patch for a request for comment. The young woman is seeking unspecified punitive damages.

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