LA schools to pay $52 million in suit over sexual abuse by coach

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will have to gather up $52 million after a settlement was agreed with lawyers representing children who alleged that they were sexually assaulted while in school.

The lawyers involved confirmed on Wednesday that the settlement had been paid, and therefore the case has now been dismissed.

The negligence and sexual battery lawsuit were a basket of several separate lawsuits filed against LAUSD over sexual assaults committed by Terry Gillard. Gillard was found guilty of 37 felony counts and 10 misdemeanor charges involving seven boys and two girls. Gillard was sentenced to 71 years in state prison.

During Gillard’s trial, prosecutors showed jurors a video of Gillard assaulting two young girls. They also said that he allegedly watched an 11-year-old boy have sex with a woman in a car, before sexually assaulting the boy himself.

Gillard was a wrestling coach at John H. Francisco Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley and also at a separate wrestling club, which catered to both Boys and Girls. Prosecutors said that between 1991 and 2017, Gillard sexually assaulted some of his wrestlers, ranging from 11 to 17 years old.

The suit said that both the school district and the Boys and Girls Club were guilty of negligence when Gillard was hired, along with in his supervision and training.

Three of the students involved in the lawsuit alleged that both institutions had prior knowledge of Gillard’s misconduct and he should not have been allowed to work close to children.

The school district agreed to settle the case, however, did so without admitting any wrongdoing. The district also chose not to comment after the settlement was paid.

“The size of this settlement highlights the tremendous harm done to our clients by Terry Gillard and the abject failure of LAUSD to protect the students at Francis Polytechnic High School from this truly deranged predator,” Morgan Stewart, one of the attorneys for the victims, said in a statement.