Honolulu: An autistic high school student raped a classmate when the adult assigned to monitor him was sleeping, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The attack happened during band practice of Pearl City High School.
The lawsuit stated that the accused had a full-time adult assigned to supervise him, as he was known to be aggressive. The lawsuit also blamed the school, which falls under the State Department of Education, of negligence.
The victim is now pursuing a civil lawsuit against for the crime, which happened in 2012, claiming compensation for the harm caused to her.
The school principal is one of the defendants in the lawsuit. The adult who was assigned to monitor the accused is also another defendant in the case.
The victim who was studying in Grade 10 was in the percussion section of the band, where the accused, in Grade 11, raped her once before raping her again in a curtained area of the auditorium.
The guardian was sleeping during the entire incident in the auditorium’s audience section.
Notably, the accused was earlier convicted of first-degree sexual assault by a family court.
In a separate, similar case earlier, a jury had decided that the Department of Education was responsible when a special education student was raped by a special education classmate at a different high school. While the jury granted USD 810,000 for damages, the state had appealed. The appeal is pending in court.
