FL: Sarasota County School Board sued over abuse case

By Tiffany Lankes
Published: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 1:45 a.m.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090225/ARTICLE/902250344/-1/NEWSSITEMAP

SARASOTA - A former Venice High School student is suing the School Board, saying administrators ignored reports that coach James LaMorte was sexually abusing his students, enabling him to continue preying on victims.

A lawsuit filed in Sarasota County last week alleges that former Venice Principal Dan Parrett did not properly investigate early concerns that came to his attention. Parrett is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Adam Brum, the Tampa attorney representing the victim, said he believes that higher-ranking administrators at the school district also knew about problems and ignored them.

"This was something that for whatever reason was ignored," Brum said. "There are too many victims. Someone in that school knew about it."

Brum's client, who is now 35, is the first to file a lawsuit against the School Board because of the LaMorte case. His name is being withheld by the Herald-Tribune because the newspaper does not typically identify the victims of sexual abuse.

The lawsuit does not specify how much money he is seeking in damages.

It comes nearly three years after LaMorte was convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison for sexually abusing male students, including fondling them and forcing them to perform oral sex.

The allegations against LaMorte dated as far back as 1978, three years after he started working as a swim coach at Venice High. The criminal investigation started in 2005, when one of LaMorte's victims went to the police.

As they investigated, police learned that one of the victims -- other than the one who filed the civil lawsuit -- came forward in 1991 with abuse allegations, but school officials dismissed the concerns and allowed LaMorte to keep teaching.

A 2005 school district investigation following LaMorte's arrest found that Parrett acted appropriately and cleared him of wrongdoing. He is now the principal at Oak Park School, the district's center for disabled students.

The complaint filed in court last week alleges that LaMorte physically and sexually abused the plaintiff when he was a student at Venice from 1990 to 1994.

According to the complaint, the student also went to Parrett and tried to report the abuse, but the principal dismissed his concern after conducting an investigation.

Parrett could not be reached for comment.

School Board attorney Art Hardy pointed out that the lawsuit is based on things that happened more than a decade ago, and said he expects that to become an issue in whether the victim can sue the district.

Brum, the plaintiff's attorney, says there is a state law that extends the statute of limitations in civil suits if the victim has repressed the memory of abuse. He said his client began to remember the abuse only after reading stories in the newspaper several years ago.

LaMorte is currently imprisoned at Taylor Correctional Institution in Perry.

The suit in the LaMorte case comes as the school district faces threats of other lawsuits pertaining to how it handled complaints that a former Venice Elementary School special education teacher was abusing students.

In that case, police learned that more than a dozen school employees had witnessed or were told of concerns about the teacher, Diana O'Neill, including the principal and a district administrator. Principal Theresa Baus talked to O'Neill twice about being too rough with the students and told her to be careful, but allowed her to keep teaching.

A jury acquitted O'Neill of four child abuse charges Feb. 13, but Superintendent Lori White has called for her dismissal for being too physically rough with students and making disparaging comments to them.

All of the parents of students who were allegedly abused have retained attorneys and say they plan to sue the district.