Former Seattle Public Schools student to receive $16M in sexual assault settlement

A former student at Garfield High School in Seattle will receive $16 million in a settlement after filing a lawsuit alleging years of sexual abuse by two former basketball coaches.

“While she is relieved by the outcome, our client will never reclaim her childhood,” Paul Sewell, an attorney representing the student, told the Seattle Times. “She hopes that the settlement will spark meaningful change so that no other child will ever have to suffer the same pain and trauma.”

The lawsuit names Walter Jones and Marvin Hall as defendants, both of whom are facing separate criminal charges.

“The complaint alleged the district was negligent for allowing Jones to volunteer on campus, though he was barred from working anywhere in the district, and for failing to report and prevent sexual abuse and discrimination based on a disability,” wrote Claire Bryan for the Times.

The school had provided the student with an individual education plan at the school and allowed her to practice with the basketball team at age 13, according to Bryan.

“She would work out with Jones, a volunteer weightlifting coach, who had been marked by the district as ‘do not rehire’ after he was fired from Ballard High School, the complaint said.”

‘Ongoing manipulation and sexual exploitation’

The lawsuit cited a Seattle Police Department investigation noting SPS employees had reason to report Jones’ presence and behavior as a coach, but he was allowed to remain.

“Other SPS employees found some of Jones’ behavior inappropriate but didn’t know about the sexual assaults,” Bryan wrote. “The district’s athletic director also knew Jones was working as a coach despite not being approved to do so, the complaint stated.”

Jones had allegedly threatened to kill the student and her family if she reported the abuse, which occurred over two years, according to the lawsuit.

Hall, the second defendant, was assistant coach of the school’s boys basketball team. He later assisted the girls team and entered an abusive relationship with the student when she was 17, even though Hall was then married with six children, the lawsuit alleges. 

The relationship continued until after the student’s 21st birthday when she was attending out-of-state colleges, according to the lawsuit. 

“Hall sent her text messages, visited her and flew her back to Seattle as part of what the plaintiff’s attorneys argue was part of his ongoing manipulation and sexual exploitation,” Bryan wrote. 

While the district will pay $500,000 in settlement fees and defense costs, its insurer – the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool – is paying the rest of the $16 million settlement, confirmed as the highest in the district’s history. 

Other high-profile sex abuse cases in schools 

The settlement comes amid a series of high-profile sex abuse cases in public schools nationwide. 

For example, another former student is suing Chicago Public Schools after years of alleged sexual abuse from a high-ranking administrator. 

This student was impregnated twice and coerced into aborting both pregnancies, according to the lawsuit – with the administrator posing as her stepfather to sign parental consent forms using a false name. 

Another recent investigation involves a longtime California teacher accused of sexually abusing two former underage students. 

As previously reported by The Lion, an estimated 95% of educator sexual misconduct cases are handled in-house and never reported to law enforcement. 

“Every school district that is receiving funding from the Every Student Succeeds Act is mandated to enact policy, regulation or legislation that prohibits all forms of concealment, and yet there are only about a dozen states that are complying with that mandate,” said Terri Miller, president of the organization S.E.S.A.M.E. 

“There is a small percentage of bad apples that can spoil the whole bunch and cause suspicion to fall upon everybody within the school system.”