After the revelation, the LA County school district sued over allegations of sexual abuse

Three former students at a high school in Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Valley are suing the school district over allegations that they were subjected to repeated sexual abuse by staff members for which there was little or no expectation of consequences.

The lawsuit filed Monday comes several months after Business Insider published a detailed expose on a series of sexual abuse allegations at Rosemead High School — one that spanned decades, involved 20 adult employees and was “of offensive nature.” Comments about students’ bodies ranged from “underage sexual assault.” The series of articles, titled “The Predators’ Playground,” backed up dozens of allegations with interviews and documents from the school itself – from a student’s handwritten complaint of sexual harassment to to a letter reprimanding a teacher for sexual innuendos The letter simply tells him to “use better judgment.”

The former students are suing the El Monte school district over what one of their lawyers called “systematic failures” to report allegations of child sexual abuse. Given this repeated negligence in reporting misconduct, victims are also calling for an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education and the Attorney General.

“Unfortunately, this district has sent a bad signal to all abusers, predators and perverts that they will be saved, that they will be protected in the El Monte Union High School District – all to protect the school and not to protect the children,” said Mike Carrillo, one of the victims’ attorneys, during a news conference Wednesday.

The allegations outlined in the lawsuit occurred between 2005 and 2009 and involve a teacher and two coaches, according to court documents.

The pattern laid out by the victims and their attorneys Wednesday mirrors that observed in “The Predators’ Playground” – a system at Rosemead High School in which allegations of sexual misconduct are investigated by the school itself rather than appropriately reported to law enforcement to become state law. Carrillo said the article helped victims come forward.

While reports are swept under the rug, teachers and staff accused of abuse continue to work and interact with students.

The school district has not yet responded to a request for comment on the allegations.

Carrillo said the school district’s superintendent, Eduard Zuniga, was asked in a deposition years ago what he would do if he received information that a teacher was having sexual relations with a student.

“And instead of saying unequivocally, ‘Yes, you report this to law enforcement,’ he said, ‘It depends on the investigation and is at the discretion of whoever received this information,'” Carrillo said. “That’s not the law.”

One of the victims was sexually abused by two of the three men who worked at the school, according to the lawsuit.

She was 14 or 15 years old and a cross-country athlete during the 2008-2009 school year when she met the team’s coach, Eduardo Escobar. The lawsuit says he began “isolating” her so he could abuse her without others seeing. The victim later reported Escobar to her teacher, Alex Rai. The lawsuit alleges Rai’s support was all part of a “grooming process” to victimize herself.

“One day I just broke down and told him what happened,” she told reporters on Wednesday, adding that she soon found out that other young girls had also accused Escobar of abuse.

“We did our reports and the response was, ‘There weren’t enough witnesses,'” she said. “So that was it. That was all we had.”

The school had conducted its own investigation and never reported the allegations to law enforcement.

While her sexual harassment complaint was largely ignored, the victim began to be abused by Rai. The lawsuit alleges he “used his position of trust and authority over her to grope her at various times on campus” leading up to her graduation in 2011. The abuse eventually escalated further to being physical.

She said the experience had caused her “trust issues” now that she was a mother.

“I personally know that I don’t allow my children to go to summer camps. When they play sports, I’m at every single practice, every single game,” she said in a choked voice. “I volunteer just to be around because I’m scared.”