Former Rosemead High students allege school district failed to protect them from predators
Women allege they were abused for years by two coaches and a teacher in the El Monte Union High School District.
Three women allege in a lawsuit filed this week that El Monte Union High School District officials failed to protect them from a trio of Rosemead High School faculty members who sexually abused them repeatedly more than 15 years ago.
The women, identified as Jane C.H. Doe, Jane D.C. Doe and Jane J.L. Doe allege, in the Los Angeles Superior Court suit that the district ignored numerous “red flags” and concealed sexual abuse complaints. Their alleged abusers were identified as two Rosemead High School coaches and a teacher.
Michael Carrillo, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit is important because for years “perpetrators and perverts within the El Monte Union High School District have been protected by the administration.”
“Child sexual abuse predators know that this district is their safe haven for committing their egregious acts,” Carrillo said. “Our clients have been through hell since they were teens, but they hope that this case brings about change within the district.”
The suit comes on the heels of reporting from Business Insider detailing four decades of alleged sexual misconduct at Rosemead High School.
El Monte Union no longer employs the former faculty members cited as abusers in the lawsuit.
Carrillo has written to the California Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education requesting investigations of what he called “rampant sexual abuse” at the school district, which serves six high schools in the San Gabriel Valley.
El Monte Union Superintendent Edward Zuniga did not respond to requests for comment. However, the district issued a statement saying it was “deeply committed to the success of its students, and we work diligently to foster positive learning environments and ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all students entrusted to our care. We do not tolerate any behavior that undermines those values and we take swift and decisive action if we suspect student safety is being compromised in any way.”
Abuse allegations
The suit alleges Jane C.H. Doe, 32, was the victim of sexual abuse and misconduct in 2008 and 2009 during her junior and senior years at Rosemead High. She alleges a teacher repeatedly groped and rubbed her private areas.
The teacher groomed Jane C.H. Doe by communicating with her regularly through the instant messaging app Snapchat and text messages, sending her explicit photos of himself and asking her to provide explicit photos in return, according to the suit.During the second semester of 2009, the plaintiff allegedly was sexually abused in the teacher’s classroom while she served as his assigned assistant.
As a result of the abuse, the plaintiff has experienced “multiple mental, emotional and psychological problems,” the suit alleges.
The suit also states Jane D.C. Doe, who is 31, was sexually abused by her cross-country coach from 2007 to 2011. In one incident, the suit alleges, the coach — under the guise of alleviating a leg cramp — pulled her shorts down, and rubbed her vagina under her underwear while making sexual comments.
Rosemead Union officials investigated the coach, but did not report the sexual abuse to authorities, the suit states.
Additionally, the teacher accused of abusing Jane C.H. Doe also groped Jane D.C. Doe on campus several times until she graduated in 2011, the suit states.
Then, a year later, the teacher allegedly coerced her into having sex with him at his home.
Jane J.L. Doe, 33, alleges a Rosemead tennis coach, from 2005 to 2009 routinely gave her hugs, kissed her, touched her inappropriately and, ultimately, had sex with her.
“Almost all students and faculty knew of the relationship but did nothing to stop it or prevent the abuse,” the suit states.
Other district failures
Additional instances of alleged sexual abuse and subsequent cover-ups allegedly have occurred on other El Monte Union campuses and within other Southern California school districts.
The El Monte Police Department investigated Arroyo High School Principal Angelita Gonzales in 2022 for failing to report suspected sexual abuse by two staffers, the suit says.
“During that police investigation, the investigating detective found that Ms. Gonzalez was being evasive and was more interested in protecting herself and the school district than the children,” the lawsuit states. “Ultimately, Ms. Gonzalez was not prosecuted due to a statute of limitations issue.”
Elsewhere, a Southern California News Group investigation of the Redlands Unified School that began in 2018 and spanned more than two years revealed that the school district, for decades, frequently failed to report to authorities those teachers and other employees accused of grooming and sexually abusing students.
SCNG’s investigation revealed that, in some cases, Redlands Unified officials thwarted police investigations of sexual abuse cases.