NJ school pays $650,000 to quell Holiday Show horror accusations

🔴 New Jersey school district agrees to six-figure settlement in child-on-child sex abuse case.

🔴 The 12-year-old attacker had known behavioral issues, according to a lawsuit.

🔴 A supervisor is accused of neglect that led to the sex assault

WESTAMPTON — A special needs school in South Jersey has agreed to pay $650,000 to a student's family to settle accusations that another older student sexually abused him.

The Burlington County Special Services School District and the family of the child, identified only as Q.S., reached the agreement on Oct. 30. John Paff with TransparencyNJ.com first reported on the settlement.

District suspends student for sexual abuse

According to the family, Q.S. was seven years old when he was attacked in a bathroom during the school's 2019 Holiday Show.

They said the attacker was a 12-year-old boy, identified as L.J., who required an assistant at all times — for his safety and the safety of other students.

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The lawsuit claims L.J. had sexually abused two other students at an indoor swimming pool at the school in the weeks leading up to the Holiday Show attack.

After the pool incidents, the school district suspended the 12-year-old boy and implemented new restrictions. They included that he was only to use an individual bathroom so that he couldn't be alone with other students.

Supervisor's neglect enables predatory behavior

However, the family of Q.S. says the older boy's supervisor failed to follow these restrictions on the day of the Dec. 12, 2019 Holiday Show.

Q.S. and L.J. were both in the last act of the show. They sat next to each other, with dozens of other students, in the school's auto detail shop as they waited to be called for their performance.

The supervisor assigned to L.J. said she saw the boys "becoming friends," according to the lawsuit. However, the family of Q.S. says the seven-year-old was being harassed.

L.J. forced Q.S. to take off his pants and touch himself in the auto detail shop, the lawsuit says. Q.S. then asked an adult to go to the bathroom so he could wash his hands, and L.J. said he also wanted to go.

L.J.'s supervisor, a woman, took them to a boy's bathroom that had stalls. The boys went into the bathroom as the supervisor waited outside, the lawsuit said.

Student attacked in bathroom stall

The seven-year-old boy said that while he was using a stall, L.J. forced his way inside and sexually abused him. After some time, the supervisor knocked on the door and told both boys to come out.

Later, when the holiday show was over, a parent of Q.S. saw that L.J. was following him around and "caressing" his shoulders. Q.S. then told his parent about the abuse, which was immediately reported to school staff.

The next day, the principal personally interviewed L.J. and wrote in his report that the 12-year-old boy admitted to sexually abusing Q.S. in the bathroom during the Holiday Show.

According to the lawsuit, the supervisor failed to follow the restrictions that had been put in place for L.J. after the previous sexual abuse incidents. And that failure left Q.S. "irreparably traumatized."

The supervisor was placed on paid administrative leave, and she later retired.

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