LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A man who alleged he was sexually abused by a Los Angeles Unified assistant principal in 2004-08, when the plaintiff was a teen at Vista Middle School in Van Nuys, reached a tentative settlement with the district.
Court papers filed July 30 by attorney Michael Carrillo on behalf of the plaintiff, who is identified only as John R.C. Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, stated that the case was resolved. No terms were divulged and Carrillo said the settlement is subject to approval by the Board of Education.
The lawsuit was filed in December 2015. The assistant principal, William Webb, was arrested in 2016 and charged with one count each of committing a lewd act on a child, oral copulation of a person under 18 and sodomy of a person under 18.
The District Attorney’s Office later dropped the charges, according to Carrillo.
LAUSD lawyers maintained in their court papers that the plaintiff, now 28, waited too long to file a claim and a lawsuit against the district. The lawyers also stated that the district could not be held liable for Webb’s alleged misconduct because it was not done in the course of his employment.
Detectives with the LAPD’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit began investigating the allegations in February 2015, according to a 2016 police statement.
Webb was one of the founding administrators at the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, where he worked in 2009-14.