Kentucky school district settles sexual abuse lawsuit for $3 million
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- Rowan County Board of Education settled a student's sexual-abuse lawsuit for $3 million.
- Multiple people reported abuse, but attorneys say administrators waited months to act.
- Settlement adds expanded annual training; court barred silencing the victim.
A $3 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed by a former Rowan County Senior High School student who alleged that school district administrators failed to act upon multiple reports that she was being sexually abused by a teacher and coach.
The settlement is believed to be the largest in Kentucky history in a case involving sexual abuse of a single victim in a school system.
The student, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, filed the lawsuit in Rowan Circuit Court in May 2023, naming as defendants the Rowan County Board of Education, former Rowan County Superintendent John Maxey, former Principal Jordan Mann and Andrew Zaheri, the teacher and coach who had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with the girl.
The Lexington Herald-Leader does not typically identify victims of sexual abuse.
Zaheri, who is serving a prison sentence in connection to the case, had previously coached the victim on the school’s girls soccer team, and attorneys said he began grooming her for a sexual relationship when she was a 14-year-old freshman.
Zaheri repeatedly raped and sexually abused the girl on school grounds during her senior year, a court document filed in November by her attorneys states.
‘Numerous continued reports’
Between late September and December 2022, Mann, the former principal, “received at least eight separate reports concerning the inappropriate relationship between the Plaintiff and Zaheri,” the court document filed in November says.
Maxey, the former superintendent, also received “several of the reports,” according to the document.
“The thing that stood out to us was just, it wasn’t just how bad the reports were, but it was the volume of the reports,” Jon Hollan, one of Doe’s attorneys, said in an interview Saturday. “It was students, teachers, coaches, administrators, and even a government official, being the mayor of Morehead.”
“Despite the numerous continued reports, Plaintiff’s parents were never contacted, Plaintiff was never questioned, and no mandatory reports were made to the required legal authorities,” the court filing states.
The document said there is a dispute about what, if anything, Mann, the principal, did in response to the reports.
“What is undisputed is that no meaningful action was taken until a report was finally made to someone outside of RCSHS,” the document states.
On Feb. 12, 2023, the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability received an anonymous tip about the situation, and the office contacted the superintendent the next day.
On Feb. 14, Maxey and Mann contacted the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services to file a sexual abuse case, the court document says.
“Zaheri confessed and was arrested less than 24 hours later,” it states.
School district responds
As part of the settlement, Hollan said the school district agreed to provide all its employees annual training regarding sexual abuse and sexual harassment beyond what the law requires.
“While the settlement agreement provides that the settlement is not an admission of liability by the school district, we thought it appropriate to comment on the situation,” Rowan County Schools said in a statement.
“While Mr. Zacheri (sic) is responsible for these acts, we want to take all the steps we can to prevent this conduct from happening again in the future. While all staff receive annual harassment training and their duty to report abuse, neglect, and dependency, our attorneys will conduct training this fall of the duties all school employees have to abstain from this behavior, and the obligation to report any inappropriate behavior to the appropriate authorities.
“We wish Jane Doe every success in her future. Hopefully, this significant settlement will make her financial life less stressful.”
Why the victim spoke out
Her attorneys said the lawsuit was never about the money. Instead, they said she wanted accountability.
“She’s not taking a dime of this money in her pocket right now,” Hollan said. “With her, it was truly about the other little boys and girls that are in schools in Rowan County right now, in schools elsewhere. She wanted to be a voice, and she wanted her case to spotlight those individuals going forward.”
The Rowan County school district’s insurance policy will cover the settlement costs, which are being set aside for the victim’s future, Hollan said.
“People have asked me what made me speak up, and I told them all the same thing. It was someone that I trust in my life looking at me and putting into the perspective of another little girl/boy,” Doe said in a statement released by her attorneys. “All I have wanted to do is help other innocent kids.
“I see this happening in the news so regularly. My heart hurts for all of the kids involved, even the ones who have stories that are never heard. If you or anyone you know are going through a situation like mine, speak up and speak loud.”
Hollan said it was important to his client that she not be subjected to a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement.
But he said the school district pushed for a non-disparagement clause preventing the victim from talking about her experience at the school, and a hearing on that issue was held last week.
“It was a very, really explosive hearing, with the judge strongly shutting down their request,” Hollan said, noting that the judge stated “the money our client was taking was for what happened to her, not to silence her, and ruled very explicitly that he would never take away this First Amendment right from a victim in a case, especially a case such as this.”
The settlement was reached Dec. 18, Hollan said, as the parties were preparing to go into a hearing on whether Kentucky law granted the school system and administrators immunity in the case.
Reports of abuse came from multiple sources
Zaheri worked as a teacher and assistant coach in Rowan County from 2007 to 2011, then returned to Rowan County Senior High School in 2013, according to court documents, which described him as a health and PE teacher who had also coached girls soccer for a time.
Zaheri and Mann, the former principal, coached the boys basketball team together and were described in court documents as best friends.
Beginning in September 2022, the victim’s senior year, two students reported to a vice principal at Rowan County Senior High School that “there was something inappropriate and sexual going on,” another of Doe’s attorneys, Jonathan Fannin said in the interview Saturday.
“They had seen Zaheri take her into a locker room, come out looking disheveled,” he said.
There were ”photos of them sitting inappropriately close together,” he said, and the students had noticed the teacher had been showing “inappropriate amounts of attention” to Doe.
When several weeks passed and nothing was done, the students went to Mann with their concerns.
“One of them testified in the case, and she said, you know, the principal just kind of brushed us off, acted like we were kind of dumb, and just said, ‘Well, I’ll look into it,’” Fannin said.
Other reports were made in October, November and December, and they came from teachers, a guidance counselor and even the local mayor, Fannin said.
Court documents say Doe was seen wearing Zaheri’s clothing at school, and the two were spotted together at Walmart.
“All these reports are flying around, and really the only investigation that was done, if you even call it that, was that they talk with Zaheri and ask him, ‘Hey, is there anything untoward going on?’ And of course, he says no,” Fannin said.
Fannin said neither the girl nor her parents were contacted by administrators.
In January 2023, the lawsuit says the girl asked Zaheri to stop contacting her because she didn’t want to be in a relationship with him.
“Finally, in February, it takes an outside, anonymous tip that’s not made to the school. It’s made to the Office of Educational Accountability,” Fannin said. “It wasn’t until that anonymous tip was made that something was done. So a tip had to go outside of Rowan County before anything was done.”
Where are they now?
Maxey, the former superintendent named in the suit, retired in 2023.
Mann was reassigned from his position as principal last year, amid outcry over his handling of the case.
In 2024, Zaheri was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal child pornography charge in connection to videos and images he created of the victim. He also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of third-degree rape and third-degree sodomy in Rowan Circuit Court in 2024.
Zaheri, 42, is being held in a federal correctional institution in Michigan.
Doe is now a junior in college, her attorneys said. In her statement, she offered thanks to her family, attorney, social worker and Gateway Children’s Advocacy Center.
“I found a life to live on the other side of things,” she wrote in part. “I’m not unhappy with myself anymore. I found a purpose to want to live along with people to live for. Do not live your life in secrecy. It will rip you apart.”
A 2022 investigation by the Herald-Leader showed that sexual misconduct was the leading reason for Kentucky teachers losing their licenses, and most of the cases reviewed involved male teachers and teen girls.
Because of cases like Zaheri’s, the Kentucky legislature passed a law that went into effect last summer that prohibits Kentucky school employees and volunteers from contacting students electronically via any means except the traceable communications system approved by their district.
