A then-16-year-old female student was sexually assaulted in 2004 by a Sunny Hills High School music instructor who had promised to mentor her, according to a newly filed lawsuit by a high-profile Orange County victim’s rights law firm against the Fullerton Joint Union High School District.
The former instructor — Albert Anthony Morales, who is described by the law firm as a since-convicted pedophile — and the school district were listed as defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed earlier this month in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of a woman identified in the filing as “Jane Doe.”
The lawsuit alleges that the district knew, or at least should have known, that Morales had sexually harassed, assaulted and abused the girl when she was a student.
District officials did not respond when asked for comment on Tuesday.
Morales, a percussion instructor who taught or volunteered at Los Angeles and Orange County campuses for 13 years, “essentially took (the girl) under his wing” and told her he would give her extra training, including at his home in Diamond Bar, said Morgan Stewart, at attorney with the Irvine-based Manly, Stewart, Finaldi & Thom law firm.
During those after-school meetups, Stewart said, Morales provided the girl with alcohol and when she was inebriated sexually assaulted her.
“It happened a couple times at his house and then a number of times in his car,” Stewart said.
The girl reported Morales to police when she was in her early 20s, Stewart said. He later pleaded no contest to oral copulation of an unconscious person, according to the law firm and news accounts, and was sentenced to three years in state prison. According to the state Megan’s Law website, a man with the same name convicted of the same charge was released in 2014, is still listed as a sex offender and is living in San Bernardino County.
Morales could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Stewart said the victim, now in her 30s, came to his firm seeking to file a civil lawsuit after realizing that her personal struggles in adulthood were tied to the trauma she faced as a teen.
“It really is an adult realization that my entire life was altered at this point in high school and from that point out everything changed,” Stewart said. “I think part of this is her desire to hold not only the institution but him responsible in her way.”
Stewart — who along with other members of his firm have handled numerous high-profile victims’ rights lawsuits — described sex abuse in schools as an epidemic. Particularly vulnerable are students who take part in after-school activities like band or sports, Stewart said, “Because those allow the latitude with which adults can groom and sexually abuse kids.”