A former St. John’s Military School student has received a $369,175 arbitration award in a lawsuit after the school failed to effectively supervise cadets in 2014, where the student was physically bound with his harasser in public and later raped in a school dorm room.
According to court files recently made public, the award was given to the family’s attorney, Dan Zmijewski in December following a four-day hearing that took place in September. Zmijewski filed a motion in the case to request a court order confirming the award to the child’s family.
The initial claim listed the boy as 12 during the time of the alleged assault, but the family’s attorney and arbitrator said he was 11.
St. John’s Military School located in Salina, Kansas, is a private boarding school for boys around the country in grades 6 to 12 that develops academic and leadership skills in a military environment, according to the Salina Journal.
The alleged perpetrator, another student at the school, had a disturbed childhood that raised concerns as to if he should have been enrolled at the school, the ruling noted.
After he arrived to the campus, the perpetrator was seen bullying other students and commanded they refer to him as “master.” The victim was one that the perpetrator bullied for a long period of time, and in one instance adult supervision decided to tie them together and leave them in a public are on the campus, the filing said.
According to the arbitrator’s records, he found that “not only was it an unconventional way to discipline boys that age but the boarding school’s own expert testified that it resulted in humiliation of both boys and made things only worse” for the boy who was bullied.
The bullied child did not talk about his assault to anyone until after more than a year after it occurred. The boy’s therapist attributes his post-traumatic stress disorder to the sexual misconduct, citing that he may need treatment for the rest of his life, the ruling said.
