A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a girl who allegedly was sexually abused in the spring at age 4 by a female instructor at a Koreatown preschool, whose director purportedly threatened the child’s mother with “legal consequences” for reporting what her daughter told her.
The girl’s mother brought the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, who is identified only as A.D., against LA First Montessori School. The complaint’s allegations include negligence, assault, battery, both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, civil rights violations and false imprisonment.
The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The suit also names as defendants the instructor, who is identified only as Ms. Sharon, and school director Esther Choe, who did not immediately reply to an email request for comment on the suit filed Wednesday.
According to the suit, on April 17 the girl was subjected to inappropriate touching and other abuse by Ms. Sharon. The alleged molestations occurred during instructional hours at the Hobart Boulevard campus, the suit further states.
Upon learning of the “horrific abuse” her daughter had allegedly endured, the plaintiff’s mother notified the school administration, the suit states. In response, instead of taking immediate action to investigate the allegations, ensure the safety and well-being of A.D., remove the instructor from any further contact with children and report the alleged crimes to the police, Choe responded with “hostility and shocking insensitivity,” the suit states.
The next day, Choe emailed A.D.’s mother suggesting that she and her daughter come to the school and talk directly to the instructor about the girl’s allegations, the suit states.
“Choe’s suggestion that a 4-year-old victim of sexual assault confront her abuser is abhorrent, outrageous and demonstrates a reprehensible failure to take the safety of a minor child seriously,” according to the complaint, which also states that A.D.’s mother suffered “grave emotional distress” and traumatized her daughter anew.
Choe also threatened A.D.’s mother with “baseless” legal consequences for reporting the sexual abuse of her minor child, which the mother believed was a “clear act of intimidation intended to silence a victim’s family and dissuade them from pursuing accountability for the abuse that occurred at the school,” the suit states.
A.D. and her mother continues to suffer serious, lasting physical, mental, and emotional harm, pain and distress, the suit states.