Jury awards $135 million to 2 men molested by California teacher 27 years ago

Jurors found the Moreno Valley Unified School District 90% liable and teacher Thomas Lee West 10% liable.

For Justin McGregor, the emotional trauma from being molested by his sixth-grade teacher in Moreno Valley 27 years ago makes it difficult even now to describe what he is enduring as an adult.

“I struggle on a daily basis with my symptoms of PTSD, there’s a lot of events that are quite triggering for me, and I struggle in my relationships, and uh …” said McGregor, 38.

What are those triggers? he was asked.

“Umm …” McGregor said before pausing.  “Why don’t we skip that question?” his attorney, Spencer Lucas, interjected.

McGregor and another victim, Brady Blair, also 38, appeared with Lucas in downtown Riverside in front of the Historic Courthouse on Wednesday, Oct. 11, to discuss the $135 million that a jury there awarded the men the previous day after a trial on a lawsuit filed in 2021. Jurors found the Moreno Valley Unified School District 90% liable ($121.5 million) and the perpetrator, Thomas Lee West, 10% liable ($13.5 million).

The lawsuit sought unspecified economic and non-economic damages.

The lawsuit said the school district knew that West had been accused of molesting children years before McGregor and Blair were sexually assaulted beginning in 1996 until their sophomore years in high school, yet did nothing to stop him. Court records show that West was charged with 10 felony counts in 1993 after authorities said he molested a foster child in his care. West eventually pleaded guilty to a single count of child endangerment and was sentenced to 120 days in jail.

West kept his job with the district.

“The district swept it under the rug,” Lucas said. “Not once, not twice, but more times than that. Mr. West should have been terminated by that point in 1996. But the district enabled him. The negligence, it’s catastrophic, it’s overwhelming, and the jury saw the truth.”

The school district’s attorneys argued in a court filing that district officials were unaware of West’s actions and were not responsible for anything done outside the scope of an employee’s duties.

“The Moreno Valley Unified School District deeply regrets what happened to these individuals. Although it happened under a previous administration over 27 years ago, the district understands the lifelong impact of these traumatic experiences,” Anahi Velasco, a district spokeswoman, said Wednesday. “The district knows that it can never undo the past, the hurt and anguish suffered by these individuals. We truly hope they continue to recover from these incidents.”

Velasco described the verdict as “unprecedented” and that the district was weighing its next action. She referred other questions, including why West remained employed by the district after his child endangerment conviction, to the district’s attorneys. They could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The insurance policy that will cover the verdict is the one that was in place at the time of the act, Velasco said. That was in the 1990s, when the district was self-insured and had a policy that covered losses such as those from fires. She said the policy will cover only 11% of the district’s share of the verdict, or about $13.4 million.

It wasn’t immediately clear where the money would come from or how the loss of it would affect children’s education.

West, 68, was criminally charged in 2003 with sexually assaulting McGregor and Blair. During that case, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a court filing that prosecutors believed West molested four other children from about 1987 to 1992 but did not file charges in those cases.

According to that filing, one of the four other boys was sexually abused while sleeping in a motel bed with West while on a trip to Arizona. Another was a student of West’s at Honey Hollow Elementary in Moreno Valley. A third was a foster child who, when he began dating his future wife, incurred the anger of West. And a fourth was another foster child who was ordered to shower with West but tell no one “because they wouldn’t understand.”

West was convicted in the 2003 case of eight counts of lewd acts under a child under 14 years old and one count of aggravated sexual assault on a minor by force. He is serving a sentence of 52 years to life in state prison.

The judge in that case, Patrick F. Magers, said he found no mitigating factors in West’s favor.

“20 years plus as a teacher was an obvious scheme to cultivate his plan for his sexual desires,” Magers said, according to the minutes of the sentencing hearing. “The court is shocked that he was allowed to be a foster parent. He violated the trust and confidence. He taught children things that children should not be taught. He was the teacher of evil.”

Lucas said West kept his hold on McGregor and Blair by threatening them with violence. He also installed trackers on their computer keyboards that allowed him to monitor who they chatted with and which websites they visited.

McGregor said Wednesday that he hopes other victims of similar crimes will report them.

“I feel a huge sense of vindication of finally being seen and knowing my story is out there for others to see, and hopefully to give some strength to other survivors of sexual abuse,” McGregor said.

Blair declined to speak to reporters.

The boys said the abuse continued until they were sophomores in high school, and the reported the abuse after they graduated. Lucas said the district at the time did not have concrete policies in place to adequately respond to such allegations.

“To this day, it’s my belief that the district still does not have adequate policies and practices in place to protect children from sexual molestation,” Lucas said.

Velasco said the district has implemented many changes since the men were abused 27 years ago and that it continues to monitor and update its practices.

The jury award comes less than a month after the attorney for the family of Landmark Middle School student Diego Stolz announced that the family had settled a wrongful-death lawsuit against the district for $27 million. The lawsuit asserted that the district was aware that Diego was being bullied at school, yet failed to act to protect him as school officials had promised.

On Sept. 16, 2019, Diego was sucker-punched in an attack captured on video. His head hit a pillar and, after he fell to the ground, unconscious, his assailant and another boy continued punching him. Stolz never woke up and died days later in a hospital. The attackers admitted to involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to probation.