Coach-Player Grooming Among Sexual Misconduct Suits Facing District

A school district in California is facing lawsuits from two former students who are claiming sexual grooming and misconduct by former staff that the district failed to investigate properly. 

One of the lawsuits against Sonora Union High School District is set to go to trial this month, and the other was filed in February, the Union Democrat reported. Though separate cases, each complaint makes similar claims saying the plaintiffs were targeted and groomed for sexual abuse by trusted advisors who worked at the school. They also each claim failures of district administrators to spot misconduct red flags and appropriately investigate allegations when brought to their attention.

The lawsuit against former SHS girls varsity basketball coach Amy Emerald is set for trial July 24 in Tuolumne County Superior Court, the Union Democrat reported. Emerald was sentenced to prison in 2020 after pleading guilty to sexually abusing one of her former players in the early 2010s. 

The other lawsuit, which was filed in February, names the district as a defendant, along with Tuolumne County and Travis Jones, a former counselor at the school accused in the civil complaint of sexually abusing the female plaintiff when she was a student in the early 1990s.

Sonora Union High School District superintendent Ed Pelfrey told the Union Democrat that the district could not comment on either lawsuit as a matter pending litigation. However, he emphasized the district's "unwavering commitment" to the health and safety of its students.

"That commitment never has, and never will, change," Pelfrey, who was not with the district at the time of the claimed abuse in both cases, said in a written statement, as reported by the Union Democrat. "We have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse or misconduct of any kind, and we are wholly dedicated to creating and maintaining a community of students and educators free from abuse and harassment. In this matter, we will continue to participate in the litigation process in good faith."

Both of the plaintiffs are identified in the civil complaints only as “Jane Doe.” 

The complaint against Emerald claims that teachers, coaches and administrators did not intervene or take any meaningful action in response to pervasive rumors and detailed allegations about Emerald’s misconduct against the plaintiff while it was happening.

The complaint claims that Emerald began to groom the plaintiff when she joined the varsity basketball team as a freshman in 2011, which escalated to hundreds of separate sexual acts spanning the plaintiff’s entire high school career.

Former District superintendent Mike McCoy, principal Todd Dearden and athletic director Rick Francis are also named throughout the complaint in instances where they allegedly failed to report numerous credible allegations to the proper authorities, as required of their positions under California’s mandatory reporting law.

According to the complaint, another student had come forward on Feb. 11, 2014, to report Emerald’s inappropriate behavior with the plaintiff. The student wrote of one incident on a team trip to Tahoe where they stayed at a house rented by Emerald, during which another student walked in on Emerald pulling down her shirt after she had been in a locked closet with the plaintiff. 

However, the complaint claims the student’s report was classified by administrators as “unofficial” because the student didn’t sign their name.

Emerald’s sexual abuse of the plaintiff continued for years thereafter, the lawsuit claims, including on school property and during school-sponsored basketball trips while staying in houses that Emerald rented for her and her team alone.

Jones and the attorney for the county could not be immediately reached for comment.

The complaint for the other lawsuit against the district claims the plaintiff in that case was sexually abused by her counselor, Jones, beginning when she was about 15 years old in 1991 and continuing for the next two years, the newspaper reported. 

The Union Democrat obtained a copy of the complaint through a public records request to the County Counsel’s Office after the county Board of Supervisors reported publicly out of a closed session at a meeting on March 14 that it had unanimously approved appointing the county counsel to defend the county in the case.

The complaint said that the lawsuit was filed after state lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 218 that gave victims of childhood sexual abuse more time to sue their alleged abusers and any institutions that enabled the abuse.

Jones would allegedly take the plaintiff out of class for counseling or participating in a teen theater program, but then would take her to his office where he would engage in sexual acts with her, the complaint claims, as reported by Union Democrat. 

The complaint criticizes the district’s failure to investigate “clear, open, obvious, and inappropriate” red flags, such as Jones drawing the curtains to his office and putting a “Do Not Disturb” sign outside his door after taking the plaintiff out of class. None of the administrators who claimed to have ignored warning signs and red flags were identified by name in the complaint.

The complaint claims that the plaintiff was embarrassed and traumatized by the experiences and told a close friend about them when she was 17, who in turn reported them to the plaintiff’s father.

However, the complaint claims that the plaintiff later told the district she was lying about the interactions with Jones after he told her that he would kill himself if she didn’t “fix it.”

There are currently no court dates scheduled in the lawsuit, the Union Democrat reported.

Jemma Dunn, an attorney for Greenberg Gross LLP who’s representing the plaintiff, said they are still in the process of getting responses to the complaint from the named defendants.

Dunn said what happened to the plaintiff was the “result of multiple failures by the school district and the county” and described the alleged abuse as “nothing short of horrific, perverse and, frankly, just unacceptable.”

“I can tell you that the level of abuse was most severe,” she said.