A 14-year-old boy inappropriately touched by his former Pacoima elementary school teacher also has suffered other trauma, including domestic violence between his biological parents, racism and the death of a stepfather he considered the most important person in his life, a psychologist testified Friday.
The boy is one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought on their behalf against the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has admitted liability for the conduct of Paul Chapel III, a former third-grade teacher at Telfair Elementary School.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury hearing the trial of the lawsuit will determine the damages they should receive.
The psychologist, Janine Shelby, said she is an expert in child trauma. She said she interviewed both the 14-year-old as well as his fellow plaintiff, a year younger.
According to Shelby, the 14-year-old was reserved at first, but later showed himself to have both “charisma and charm” when he began to open up.
“I really did see an amazing portrait of this young man who had a complicated life,” Shelby said.
When he was very young the boy witnessed domestic violence between his mother and his natural father, Shelby said.
His mother also experienced postpartum depression, according to Shelby.
“Being depressed makes it so much harder to raise an infant,” Shelby said.
The boy’s mother eventually remarried.
The boy showed behavioral problems as early as pre-school, and when he began regular classes he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Shelby said.
“He didn’t adjust well to school,” Shelby testified. “He also was called some terrible, racist words.”
The boy is half-black and half-Latino.
The boy’s life was further complicated when his mother and his stepfather, with whom he had become very close, separated, Shelby said.
On top of that, Chapel began abusing him in 2010-11, when he was a student of a teacher in an adjoining classroom, Shelby said.
Although the boy’s mother and stepfather eventually reunited, the stepfather later died, Shelby said.
Shelby said that the boy told her he was closer to his stepfather than anybody else in his family. She also said the boy’s mother has worked valiantly to raise the boy and her two other children as a single parent.
Chapel, now 54, is serving a 25-year sentence imposed in 2012, after he pleaded no contest to molesting 13 boys during a roughly 4 1/2-year period.
— City News Service