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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A second adult plaintiff is suing Los Angeles Unified alleging he was sexually abused by an administrator when the plaintiff was a young boy.
The administrator, then-Assistant Principal, William Webb was one of the founding administrators at the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, where he worked in 2009-14.
The plaintiff in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit is identified only as John Doe. Now 24, Doe was 14 years old and a high school freshman when he began the 2013-14 school year at the Cortines School, while Webb was 49 years old at the time, according to the lawsuit brought Wednesday.
The complaint alleges childhood sexual abuse and names the LAUSD and Webb as defendants. An LAUSD representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Soon after meeting the plaintiff, Webb began "grooming" and conditioning" Doe by paying special attention to him and spending unusual amounts of time with the boy, the suit states.
Webb also was a Facebook friends with many Cortines School students and Webb accepted when Doe sent him a friend request, the suit states. Webb began messaging Plaintiff through the Facebook app and the two later switched to a more secure messaging app, where the communications became more sexually oriented, the suit alleges.
"Webb messaged plaintiff on a regular basis and started having him come to Webb's office to eat lunch during the school day," according to the suit, which further states that school administrators saw the two eating lunch alone.
During the lunches, Webb made numerous inappropriate sexual comments to Doe, calling him "cute" and mature for his age and telling the boy people with whom he would like to have intimacy, the suit states.
Webb also drove Doe home in his personal vehicle and once stopped the car, then kissed and inappropriately touched the plaintiff before reaching the boy's house, according to the suit, which additionally states that Webb "sexually abused plaintiff on multiple occasions after that."
Webb kept messaging Doe after the plaintiff's freshman year and invited him to have lunch with him on the school campus, which was open for summer school and for administrators to do work, the suit states.
Webb continued many of the same abuses and lunch invitations during Doe's sophomore year, according to the complaint.
In 2019, the LAUSD settled a lawsuit with another man who alleged he was sexually abused by Webb in 2004-08, when the plaintiff was a teen at Vista Middle School in Van Nuys.
The plaintiff in the earlier suit sued in December 2015 and was identified only as John R.C. Doe. Webb was arrested in 2016 and charged with one count each of committing a lewd act on a child, oral copulation of a person under 18 and sodomy of a person under 18, but the District Attorney's Office later dropped the charges, according to R.C. Doe's attorney, Michael Carrillo.
LAUSD lawyers maintained in their court papers that R.C. Doe, now in his 30s, waited too long to file a claim and a lawsuit against the district. The lawyers also stated that the district could not be held liable for Webb's alleged misconduct because it was not done in the course of his employment.