WILLIAMSON – The legal guardian of a Mingo County student says the boy was the victim of a sexual assault by a fellow student during class last month.
Birdie Newsome, as legal guardian and next friend of J.N., filed her complaint March 10 in Mingo Circuit Court against the Mingo County Board of Education.
According to the complaint, J.N. was a ninth-grader at Tug Valley High School during the 2022-23 school year. On February 2, 2023, he was in his eighth-period Advanced Manufacturing class playing cards when the substitute teacher identified as Ms. Pickle asked the students to stop playing. There were eight students in the class.
Michael Cary
| Courtesy photo
The complaint says J.N. and another student identified as J.F. then crawled under the classroom table and began to perform oral sex with each other. Two or three fellow students recorded the act and sent it to other students before the substitute teacher asked the two students to come out from under the table.
“At no time did the teacher ‘Ms. Pickle’ notice the two students were partaking in sexual acts in her classroom,” the complaint states.
The next day, Newsome was asked to come to the school. She and J.N. met with the vice principal, the school resource officer and a school counselor. The school suspended J.N. for 10 days. School officials only were aware of the situation because a student reported the video was being circulated.
But a February 7 board meeting, it was decided J.N. would attend alternative school instead. Because of ongoing bullying and harassment on the bus to the alternative school, the family opted to enroll J.N. in virtual school.
The plaintiffs accuse the school board of negligence, negligent supervision and hiring and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
They seek compensatory damages for past and future medical expenses, physical and mental pain, anguish and suffering. They also seek punitive damages, consequential and other derivative damages, general damages, attorney fees, court costs, pre- and post-judgment interests and other relief.
The plaintiffs are being represented by Michael Cary of Cary Law Office in Charleston. Cary declined comment on the case, which has been assigned to Circuit Judge Miki J. Thompson.
Mingo Circuit Court case number 23-C-36