LIBERTY — Claims made in a lawsuit filed against the Liberty Local School District that the district failed to investigate a report a student was sexually assaulted at school are false, according to a statement from the district.

The district, W.S. Guy Junior High School Principal Michael Palmer and another employee, David Walker, who was the school’s in-school suspension supervisor, are named as defendants in a $2.25 million lawsuit that alleges the girl was sexually assaulted in the restroom at W.S. Guy.

On Thursday, the district responded.

“We believe the evidence shows that statements contained within the lawsuit, regarding Liberty Local Schools’ investigation into the matter, are not true. When our district was made aware of the sexual assault allegations, we immediately performed a thorough investigation in cooperation with the Liberty Township Police Department,” said Superintendent Andrew J. Tommelleo. “We are confident that as this process moves through the courts the district will have been found to have acted swiftly and appropriately in this case.”

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 1 by the girl’s father, states she was excused from a study hall to look for a missing laptop computer on Nov. 8, 2021, when she encountered another student and started talking with him. The male student suggested they go into a second-floor restroom to continue their conversation. They entered a teachers’ restroom through an unlocked door. The boy turned off the lights and used his phone for light to lock the door, the lawsuit states.

He then started to kiss and sexually assault her, as she tried to unlock the door to get away, the lawsuit states. A camera in the hallway captured some aspects of the girl’s unsuccessful attempt to leave the restroom, and the document states the defendants intentionally erased all the footage relevant to the incident. After the alleged rape, the male student left the female on the floor crying, according to the lawsuit.

On Dec. 12, 2021, the girl reported a sexual assault to Palmer and Walker. Shortly after, the girl said she began to be bullied by friends of the male student, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit claims the defendants did not conduct any investigation into the girls’ allegations and did not do anything to keep the two students separated.

Because of the alleged rape and the subsequent bullying, the plaintiffs claim the girl received no support from the two Liberty school district employees, in the form of in-house counseling or professional support of any kind; and no discipline was imposed on the accused rapist, who was permitted to continue to attend school there. This conduct prevented the girl from the “full range of educational opportunities that should have been available to her as a student of Guy Junior High School.

Another count of the lawsuit states the door of the teachers’ second-floor restroom was defectively designed because it did not properly lock and the door opened into the room. This design inhibited the girl’s ability to escape, the lawsuit states.

escott@tribtoday.com