LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A lawsuit has been filed against a Boyle Heights charter school group on behalf of a teenage boy who alleges he was sexually molested by an employee in 2016 and 2017.
The plaintiff is now 13 and is identified only as John A.R. Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Tuesday. The suit names Extera Public Schools and Frank Salomon Hernandez, a former after-school coordinator at the Lorena Street Campus, which serves elementary school-age students in
Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.
The suit alleges sexual assault, harassment and battery as well as negligence. The plaintiff's guardian is seeking unspecified damages on his behalf.
A representative for Extera did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The suit alleges Hernandez molested the boy between May 2016 and June 2017 on campus. Hernandez allegedly also sent the boy ``lewd and inappropriate coded messages'' expressing his feelings for the child.
Extera's alleged indifference to Hernandez's interactions with minors ``made it a virtual certainty'' that the plaintiff and other minors ``would be victimized,'' the suit states.
The boy has suffered ``extensive physical, psychological and emotional damage'' because of the alleged abuses, the suit states.
Extera should have known that Hernandez violated his role as an after-school coordinator and used his position to get access to children such as the plaintiff, the suit states. Extera is also accused of concealing information about Hernandez's behavior from parents and failing to report relevant information to help bring him to justice.
Hernandez pleaded no contest in February 2019 to charges of willful harm or injury to a child and soliciting or engaging in lewd or dissolute conduct in public and was sentenced to four years probation, including 60 days in jail, the suit states. He also was ordered to register as a sex offender, according to the suit.
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