A teacher with the Fairfax County School District has settled a lawsuit he filed against the school board to recover costs he incurred defending himself against criminal charges that he molested a 12-year-old girl. The man was found not guilty at trial after inconsistencies in the girl's story came to light, but the board initially declined to cover all of the teacher's legal fees, leading to the suit. As part of the settlement, the school district will pay nearly $73,000.
The man was a physical education teacher and soccer coach in Centreville in 2010 when the girl claimed that he approached her in the gymnasium, picked her up, fondled her and carried her to a stack of gym mats. The girl claimed that the man put her on the mats and lay on top of her in front of several other students.
Witnesses later told authorities that the girl had come up with the story as revenge for the teacher reprimanding her for bullying other children at school. Strangely, Fairfax detectives never interviewed the girl. However, prosecutors took the case to trial, causing the defendant to run up $125,000 in legal fees, court costs and other expenses. Following the trial, the jury deliberated for just 47 minutes before finding the teacher not guilty on charges of sexual battery of a child under 13 and abduction.
Virginia law allows public employees who are acquitted of criminal charges to receive compensation for legal fees from their employer. But the Fairfax County school board voted to pay the man just $60,000, well below the approximately $108,000 he had requested.
The teacher sued the district. With trial set to begin this summer, the board met and voted to offer the man $72,838, which he accepted. However, the teacher said that he was not truly satisfied with the outcome, noting that it took two years to resolve and did not compensate him completely.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Fairfax to pay falsely accused teacher $73,000," Tom Jackson, June 25, 2012
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