Men who alleged abuse by former Curtis wrestling coach will get millions from district
The University Place School District has agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle litigation brought by six men who alleged a former wrestling volunteer sexually abused them as students in the mid-2000s.
The men also contended in their civil complaints that school officials should have prevented the convicted sex offender from ever joining the program.
Prosecutors charged David James O’Connor, 68, with four counts of child molestation in 2014 when two former student-athletes came forward. At the time, investigators also discovered he had been convicted of indecent liberties involving children in Lewis County in 1977.
Pierce County prosecutors dropped their case soon after charging O’Connor because the statute of limitations had expired. The victims then turned to civil litigation.
“That (first) plaintiff filed a claim and, shortly thereafter, a number of victims came forward with nearly the same allegations, although they didn’t know one another,” said Ashton Dennis of the Washington Law Center.
In all, more than a dozen men who O’Connor allegedly abused as a volunteer assistant coach for the Curtis junior and senior high school teams from 2003 to 2008 came forward to speak to attorneys from the Washington Law Center and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC.
Nine of those men, who are mostly in their early 30s now, decided to file lawsuits. Six pursued claims against the University Place School District and the other three alleged O’Connor also abused them through other community positions he held, including with the Pierce County Boy Scouts and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“We see this pretty commonly that these predators get into leadership positions within youth organizations and they exploit that opportunity,” Vincent Nappo of PCVA PLLC told The News Tribune.
The six men who chose to settle with the school district so far will receive between $400,000 and roughly $1.6 million, depending on their individual allegations, according to their attorneys.
Superintendent Jeff Chamberlin issued a statement to The News Tribune on Friday.
“University Place School District’s first priority is to provide a safe and positive educational experience for all of its students,” Chamberlin wrote in an email. “Recently, lawsuits were filed by several former students against the District. These students allege sexual abuse by a former parent volunteer in the wrestling program more than a decade ago. The parent volunteer has not been associated with the district for many years. We are deeply saddened by these allegations and are sorry for any pain or suffering that students may have experienced.”
Claims from the other three men are expected to go to trial in 2023, Nappo said.
At the time of O’Connor’s 2014 arrest, there was some question about whether his 1977 convictions would show up on a Washington State Patrol database because a judge reversed his pleas after he completed sexual deviancy treatment at Western State Hospital, according to The News Tribune archives.
That same background check system allowed O’Connor to get a job at the Special Commitment Center for dangerous sex offenders in 2005, according to The News Tribune archives. He was briefly fired for inappropriately touching subordinates but was later reinstated and handed lesser punishment.
The News Tribune was not immediately able to identify contact information for O’Connor, but a LinkedIn profile in his name indicates he retired in 2015. Records show he first started working for the state in 1985.
Attorneys for the alleged abuse victims said they believe he still lives in the University Place area.
Nappo said attorneys could not find any indication that Curtis school officials ran a full background check for O’Connor before he joined the wrestling program, which O’Connor’s children were a part of.
University Place School District policy at the time was to submit a fingerprint check rather than a name search online and ask volunteers to fill out a self-disclosure form for crimes against children, according to Nappo.
“This man was just allowed to join the program without any real vetting,” Nappo said.
Once a part of the program, Nappo said, O’Connor was known to bring students to his home for off-season training.
“That also directly violates school policy,” Nappo said.
University Place School District employees complete WSP and FBI background checks, reference checks and sexual misconduct disclosures, Chamberlin wrote in a statement. Staff complete annual training about reporting abuse and appropriate conduct with students.
Volunteers also go through background checks as a part of an application process, Chamberlin said.
Some of those processes were already in place in the 2000s and should have been enforced, according to Nappo.
“We’ve taken a position that this was an utter disregard for safety as it relates to these children,” Dennis, an attorney for the victims, told The News Tribune. “This case represents significant lapses.”
