Global Courant 2023-04-27 16:47:09
A Southern California jury has awarded $2.28 billion to a woman who was abused for years by her stepfather, her lawyers announced.
The panel in Riverside County Superior Court on Tuesday awarded damages to a woman described in court documents only as Jane Doe, who said she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather from age 5 until she was 14, according to an announcement from the law firm of Gary A Dordick.
The lawsuit alleged that the stepfather had sexually assaulted the girl from the 1980s.
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The attacks occurred at their Lake Elsinore home and at events, gatherings and properties of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which both parents were active, the lawsuit said.
“These persistent acts of abuse brought Plaintiff to the brink of suicide,” the lawsuit said.
A woman who was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child for years was awarded $2.28 billion by a jury in Southern California. (Fox news)
In addition to the stepfather, the charges of negligence and sexual abuse also name the church and the woman’s mother. It alleged that the woman had repeatedly told church officials, including local bishops, about the sexual abuse, but that they had failed to report it to police, in violation of church policy, and had also used “harassment and shaming tactics” to prevent her from telling anyone outside the church. .
The AP names neither the stepfather nor the mother to shield the identity of the victim.
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The stepfather was finally arrested in 1997 after Jane Doe told her high school basketball coach about the abuse, the lawsuit said. He pleaded guilty to committing lewd acts with a child under age 14 and spent three years in state prison, the lawsuit said.
While denying wrongdoing, Church settled its portion of the lawsuit for $1 million last December, and the woman’s mother settled in February for $200,000, according to the woman’s attorneys.
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The stepfather failed to appear at the trial on the first day of jury selection and withdrew his answer to the trial instead of getting an arrest warrant and “therefore his lawyer could not participate in the trial,” the law firm said in a statement. e-mail.
An email to the stepfather’s lawyer was not immediately returned on Wednesday.
