CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland schools officials agreed to pay $120,000 to settle lawsuits brought by two former East Tech High School students who were sexually abused by a district security guard.
Cleveland Municipal School District will pay each student $60,000, according to the students’ attorney, John Colan. The students have not yet settled with former security guard Derrick Dugger, who is serving a four-year prison sentence, according to court records.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Cleveland, accused the school district of ignoring complaints about Dugger made by other students’ parents and a fellow security guard before Dugger abused the two students. The complaints accused Dugger of grooming and making inappropriate comments to students.
cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer requested the settlement documents more than a week ago, but the district has not yet provided them. Messages left with the district’s spokeswoman, Roseann Canfora, were not returned.
The two students attended East Tech from August 2017 until May 2018. Dugger used his authority to groom the students and later sexually abuse them, the lawsuit said.
Dugger sent unsolicited explicit photos of himself to the two students, according to the lawsuits, all before he sexually abused them.
School officials on Nov. 13, 2018, reported the accusation of sexual abuse to Cleveland police, who arrested Dugger.
He was accused of groping one student and forcing another student to perform oral sex. Prosecutors said Dugger targeted the girls, then 15, because they were going through traumatic and stressful situations at home.
He pleaded guilty in 2019 to sexual battery, gross sexual imposition and importuning. He is scheduled for release from prison in June.
