Manly, Stewart & Finaldi File Four Additional Sex Abuse Lawsuits Against Scandal-Plagued Redlands Unified School District

REDLANDS, Calif., Sept. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys representing alleged victims of convicted child molester and former Redlands High School teacher and coach, Kevin Patrick Kirkland, announced the filing of four new lawsuits against the school and the Redlands Unified School District. See New Lawsuit here.

These suits are in addition to a previously filed claim by "Jane RSL Doe" which accused District administrators of a decade-long cover-up of Kirkland's alleged sexual assault and harassment of minors. See Jane RSL Lawsuit here.

The lawsuits allege that school administrators ignored reports of alleged sexual misconduct by Kirkland going back to 2006, encouraged students not to report alleged sexual harassment and abuse to the police, lied to police and refused to cooperate with the police investigation of Kirkland.

According to the complaint, administrators received complaints that Kirkland allegedly engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct with two female students in 2006 and in 2012. Rather than remove Kirkland from the classroom, the students were removed from the classroom.

The complaint also alleges that RUSD administrators pressured students not to report alleged sexual assaults and harassment by Kirkland to the police.

Kirkland pled guilty to four criminal sex abuse charges, including one felony involving minors, and served one year in state prison. It is also alleged that before the District Attorney offered him a plea deal which resulted in only one year's imprisonment, the police failed to inspect Kirkland's electronic devices which allegedly contained nude photos of one of the alleged victims and other child pornography.

"Administrators at Redlands Unified School District have a long and disturbing history of ignoring and covering up sexual abuse scandals. During the past decade, no less than five Redlands High School faculty members have been accused of sexual misconduct involving students. All five were fired and two of them went to jail. Now, the District is facing five more lawsuits resulting from the District's attempted cover-up of criminal sexual assault and harassment. When are they going to start following the law and protecting kids?" said victims' attorney Morgan Stewart, a partner in Manly Stewart & Finaldi.

Manly, Stewart & Finaldi won a 6 million-dollar settlement against the school and the Redlands Unified School District in the 2016 case of Laura Whitehurst, a teacher at Redlands High School and Citrus Valley High School who became pregnant by an under-aged student.

"Following this settlement, RUSD claimed it was working to strengthen its policy and procedures to protect children. It is clear they have continued to ignore complaints of abuse and obstruct law enforcement investigations of perpetrators. We call for an independent investigation by the State Attorney General so children will be safe attending schools in the Redlands Unified School District," said Vince Finaldi, lead attorney in the Whitehurst case.

Manly, Stewart & Finaldi is California's leading law firm representing child victims of sexual abuse.  The firm has represented more than 150 victims of clergy sexual abuse in California and hundreds of others throughout the United States.  The firm also represented plaintiffs in the $140,000,000 settlement against LAUSD in the Miramonte case, the largest sex abuse settlement against a School District in the US.

SOURCE Manly, Stewart & Finaldi