The families of the two other children victimized by Yeh had filed separate civil cases against the district. All four students are referred to anonymously in court documents because they are still minors.
In a statement announcing the newest lawsuit, a parent of one of the victims said the school should have prevented their daughter from being harmed.
“But they chose to protect this evil man,” the parent said. “We just don’t understand that.”
School and district administrators dismissed complaints from the first two girls, who came forward in 2018 and 2022, and even referred to the first student as a liar before disciplining her, prosecutors said during Yeh’s criminal trial.
The lawsuit filed this week alleges that administrators “covered up and concealed Jeremy Yeh’s inappropriate and abhorrent conduct, failed to document, investigate, or respond to prevent further incidents of sexual misconduct of minor students, and failed to comply with their mandatory duties to report suspected and known abuse of children to law enforcement and child welfare agencies.”
School district officials did not respond to KQED’s multiple requests for comment.
“I think that the science is pretty clear that kids don’t make this stuff up. They don’t even have the vocabulary when they’re 6 or 7 to talk about sex or sexual touching in any sort of real way,” Thompson said. “It’s not their job to investigate whether the kid’s telling the truth or not.
“It’s their job to report it to the authorities who are trained to do investigations. … And they didn’t do it in this case.”
Thompson said his clients are seeking monetary compensation from the district for the preventable trauma they experienced.
“Unfortunately, that’s all we can do — is make the school district pay our clients,” he said. “The more money we can make them pay, the bigger the lesson they’re going to learn so this doesn’t happen in the future.”
