Allegations {that a} northern Virginia seventh-grader was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted at her college greater than a decade in the past had been completely fabricated, legal professionals for the college system contend in a court docket submitting in search of the dismissal of a lawsuit she filed.
The onetime scholar, who’s now 24, stands by her claims.
The allegations surfaced in 2011 and have been the topic of authorized proceedings for greater than a decade, together with a lawsuit the onetime scholar first filed towards the college district in 2019. They had been additionally the idea for a 2014 settlement that Fairfax County Public Colleges — the state’s largest college system — reached with the U.S. Division of Training’s Workplace of Civil Rights over accusations the district did not adequately examine the scholar’s grievance.
FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOLS ACCUSED OF COVERING UP ‘GANG RAPE’ AS MS-13 TRAFFICKERS PLAGUED DISTRICT: LAWSUIT
Fairfax County Public Colleges is proven on March 4, 2019, in Merrifield, Virginia. Allegations {that a} northern Virginia seventh-grader was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted at her college greater than a decade in the past had been completely fabricated, legal professionals for the college system contend in a court docket submitting in search of the dismissal of a lawsuit she filed. The onetime scholar, who’s now 24, stands by her claims. (AP Photograph/Matthew Barakat, File)
VIRGINIA STUDENT ALLEGEDLY SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BATHROOM
In a movement filed late Wednesday in federal court docket in Alexandria, although, the college system’s legal professionals ask that the previous scholar’s lawsuit be dismissed as a “fraud upon the court docket.”
The legal professionals say they uncovered Fb posts between the then-12-year-old lady and a classmate alleged to be one in every of her principal attackers. They are saying the messages present that the 2 had been really boyfriend and girlfriend and that the lady had sought out sexual contact with him throughout a time period wherein she alleged he had been raping and threatening her.
“It’s now crystal clear that your entire case has been litigated on false premises,” the legal professionals wrote.
The lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial in March, is one in every of a number of instances the college system has battled lately, racking up hundreds of thousands in authorized charges.
The instances, and comparable accusations in neighboring Loudoun County, have drawn scrutiny, as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has faulted native college techniques for his or her dealing with of sexual assault accusations.
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Within the Fairfax County case, the lady, who’s now 24, mentioned in a letter to the court docket that she believes the not too long ago found Fb posts are irrelevant and had been probably inauthentic. She mentioned the messages purportedly despatched by her got here from an account recognized solely as “Fb Person,” that they “look extremely suspicious” and that she does not bear in mind sending them.
She additionally says that even when she did ship them, her attacker compelled her to ship messages like that to cowl up the truth that she was being abused.
“He would make me textual content him on a regular basis in order that I’d appear to be his girlfriend, she wrote.
The chats — excerpts of that are included within the college system’s submitting — are specific. They continued by way of Nov. 21, 2011, when the boy informed the accuser he was breaking apart along with her. The subsequent day is when the accuser and her mom met with college officers to make her first grievance, in accordance with the college system’s legal professionals.
The accuser has complained all through the lawsuit that the college system has been unduly aggressive in its protection.
FAIRFAX COUNTY MOMS SAY DISTRICT DEFIANCE OF TRANSGENDER SCHOOL POLICY PUTS ‘SPECIAL INTERESTS BEFORE SAFETY’
The varsity system, for its half, says the accuser’s story has advanced. In her very first written grievance in 2011 she wrote that her tormentors “harass me, tease me, and provides me seductive seems to be” and that one left a vulgar voicemail.
By the point she filed her second amended grievance in 2022, she alleged that she had been gang-raped a number of occasions in a faculty closet.
The accuser has mentioned in court docket papers that as a 12-year-old, she initially lacked the vocabulary to explain what was occurring to her.
In 2012, the accuser’s mom filed a police report and an investigation occurred. There isn’t a indication that legal costs had been filed, although most of the court docket data associated to the police investigation have been redacted.
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