Los Angeles Unified School District attorneys are seeking dismissal of a lawsuit filed by two women in their 50s who allege they were sexually abused and traumatized in the 1980s by a now-deceased teacher who was profiled while a fugitive on “America’s Most Wanted.”
However, like the LAUSD, the plaintiffs have filed a set of pretrial motions in case the effort to dismiss the suit filed in June 2024 is denied, including preventing the defense from suggesting that the women consented to the personal violations.
The plaintiffs are identified only as Jane L.N. Doe, 53, and Jane Y.M. Doe, 54, in the Los Angeles Superior Court negligence suit that seeks unspecified damages stemming from the alleged misconduct of the late Don Ray Moore, who was sentenced in July 1991 to 14 years in prison at age 57 for the abuses of several girls.
In court papers filed Friday with Judge Gary D. Roberts, the Doe lawyers want the judge to bar evidence during trial that the suggests the two plaintiffs, minors at the time, consented to Moore’s misconduct.
“Evidence of consent will only result in undue prejudice against the plaintiffs and will confuse, mislead, deceive and distract the jury from determining the actual issues to be determined,” according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.
By law, minors cannot legally consent to an adult having sex with them. But the Doe attorneys note that Jane Y.M. Doe testified in a deposition that Moore told her he would stop his conduct when she said so.
In addition, even where consent has not been raised during discovery or depositions, defense attorneys sometimes attempt to introduce it indirectly at trial by asking the victims, “Did you ever say stop?” or “Did you ever say no?,” according to the Doe lawyers’ court papers.
“These questions are subtle attempts to imply that silence, hesitation or the failure to disclose contemporaneously equates to consent,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys contend in their court papers.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys also want the judge to exclude evidence of L.N. Doe’s fathers substance abuse and institutionalization, as well as some domestic violence between her parents. When asked how not seeing her father, a long-distance truck driver, made her feel, L.D. Doe said, “normal, no emotions,” according to the Doe attorneys’ court papers.
Trial of the case is scheduled June 1, but the judge will rule first on the LAUSD’s dismissal motion during a hearing set for May 18. In that motion, the LAUSD attorneys contend the plaintiffs’ negligence causes of action are barred because the women cannot prove the district knew or should have known of Moore’s alleged propensity to sexually abuse students. The defense attorneys also maintain that the LAUSD is not liable for any off-campus molestations.
The women additionally cannot show that the district failed to show “ordinary prudence” in its supervision of the plaintiffs, nor can they demonstrate that the LAUSD had actual knowledge of any child abuse and then failed to report the misconduct, according to the LAUSD attorneys’ court papers.
The suit states Moore threatened both Does with punishment if they spoke up about the alleged abuses and the plaintiffs did not fully realize until 2023 the psychological damage they suffered.
Jane Y.M. Doe further alleges she felt vulnerable “given the power dynamic between her and Mr. Moore,” according to the suit.
Moore allegedly stayed in a Ventura River homeless encampment for a year to escape prosecution and was captured in Ventura in 1990 on a tip from an “America’s Most Wanted” viewer.
The lawsuit is unclear on whether the plaintiffs were among the victims in the criminal complaint. Moore died in December 2012.
The plaintiffs were 10 years old and in the sixth grade at 97th Street Elementary School — now known as Charles W. Barrett Elementary School — when they met Moore, the suit states. Moore allegedly began grooming them and other young students in preparation for abusing them.