SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The Central Valley School District in Spokane County will pay a $2.5 million settlement to a former student who said she was raped in the sixth grade, a lawyer for the victim said Thursday.
The student attended Greenacres Middle School and contended that former teacher Anthony Cucinotti raped her.
The victim, who is now a young adult, said she pursued the lawsuit against the district to make it clear that school officials must do a better job of protecting students. She said the sexual assaults at the age of 11 turned her life upside down.
The Associated Press generally does not identify alleged sex assault victims.
The school district did not admit liability in the settlement.
Cucinotti could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Cucinotti was placed on paid administrative leave in April 2009 after several students reported that he snapped a girl’s bra strap in class. He resigned that same year and eventually surrendered his teaching certificate after a state investigation.
Attorney Richard Eymann said the sexual assaults on his client took place in Cucinotti’s classroom after school.
The victim did not report the rapes until she was 14, Eymann said. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2013.
The Central Valley School District said it settled the lawsuit “to allow the former student to obtain whatever help and counseling she may need to heal and move forward as the result of these claimed actions of Mr. Cucinotti.”
The district said in a press release that it also hoped to “avoid the burden, time and cost to everyone of a lengthy trial.”
Cucinotti began working for Central Valley in 1992. Complaints about his inappropriate behavior toward female students started the next year, filed by co-workers, students and parents.
Eymann said Cucinotti lives somewhere in California and is no longer teaching.
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