Ogden School District teacher sex cases: New suit alleges lax oversight
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- Mound Fort Junior High is shown with Mount Ogden in the background on Monday, Aug. 24, 2020.
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- Drew Tutt
OGDEN — A woman who as a teenager was sexually abused by a teacher has filed a lawsuit alleging that the Ogden School District had a pattern of policy and supervisory deficiencies that repeatedly allowed teachers to prey upon students.
The woman was a student of Drew Tutt in 2015-16 when the Mound Fort Junior High teacher and assistant soccer coach assigned her to be his aide, according to the suit, filed Sept. 30 in 2nd District Court. Tutt picked her up at night to play Pokemon Go and sexually assaulted her multiple times, the suit said. A second female teen student also was abused during that time. Tutt was fired and convicted of two counts of third-degree felony sexual abuse of a minor student. A judge sentenced him to zero to five years in prison. He was paroled in 2021, according to Utah Department of Corrections records.
Three other cases of Ogden School District teachers “grooming” students for sexual contact preceded Tutt’s crimes, said the suit, filed by Salt Lake City attorney Michael W. Young.
“The district had a clear pattern, since at least 2012, of teachers sexually grooming underage students through particular methods such as inappropriate messaging and school positions such as teachers’ assistants,” the suit said. “Despite this clear pattern, Ogden City School District did not meaningfully modify its policies or training to effectively combat the problem.”
Cases mentioned in the suit and outlined in court records and past news coverage:
- In October 2012, a female Mound Fort teacher was arrested for swapping sexually explicit photos with a 14-year-old male student. Charging documents said she bought the boy a phone and a few days later sent him a photo of herself nude from the waist up. She was convicted of two felonies and sentenced to probation.
- A Highland Junior High teacher was allowed to resign after allegations surfaced in 2014 that she had engaged in late night social media discussions with a male student, flattering and flirting with him, often using foul language. The boy’s mother saw a conversation and reported it to the school district. No criminal case resulted because a district official told the Standard-Examiner that “there’s nothing sexual in the discussion.”
- A male Highland teacher was arrested in 2015 after a 17-year-old girl disclosed that he had abused her when she was in junior high. Police documents alleged the teacher had sex with the girl several times. He was sentenced to a year in jail on a charge of forcible sexual abuse.
In Tutt’s case, Young quoted a court document in which the Mound Fort principal “admitted that he was suspicious of inappropriate contact between Tutt and (the girl) independent of the actual complaints he had received from parents.”
The suit added, “The district failed to act to ensure this harmful sexual grooming stopped. Tutt was able to freely continue grooming (the girl) and other students.”
The girl’s rights were violated under the Fourth and 14th Amendments because the school district allegedly “created the danger” by having an “informal custom” of failing to investigate and reprimand Tutt and others’ claimed behaviors, the suit contended. The district also failed to adequately train and supervise the offending teachers, according to the suit.
The suit asks for a judgment that the student’s rights were violated and that damages of at least $300,000 be awarded.
Two earlier civil suits stemming from Tutt’s crimes were dismissed by state district judges. Another case, filed by Young on behalf of the Jane Doe student, remains under litigation in U.S. District Court.
In that latter case, assistant state attorneys general representing the Ogden district have denied allegations that it had knowledge of sexual harassment of the girl and remained deliberately indifferent to it. The attorneys also argue that it is procedurally too late to bring up new allegations that the district was lax on policy enforcement and supervision of teachers. Young said the girl’s attorneys learned of the past teacher sex abuse cases only this summer during a court deposition of the school district’s human resources director.
Asked Wednesday about the new lawsuit, district spokesperson Jer Bates said officials do not comment on litigation while it is in progress.
Efforts to contact Young were not immediately successful.