PARKERSBURG – A suspended Wood County teacher and coach has been sued for sexual abuse of one of his middle school basketball players.
The minor plaintiff, identified only as S.D., filed his complaint September 26 in Wood Circuit Court through parent and guardian M.Q.L. against the Wood County Board of Education and Dwain Sponseller.
Sponseller, 40, was a teacher at Parkersburg South High School and was the boys basketball coach at Devender Middle School as well as an athletic official. He was placed on unpaid suspension by the school board earlier this year after being accused of and arrested for sexually abusing students at the middle school.
Sponseller
| File photo
Last month, he was indicted on nine counts of first-degree sexual abuse and seven counts of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian. The Wood County Prosecutor’s Office said the charges stem from incidents that occurred from March 2005 to March of this year.
According to media reports, Sponseller was arrested by Parkersburg Police in March after it was reported that he had been observed inside Van Devender Middle School in the company of a juvenile when Sponseller was not permitted to be there. He was arrested after two juveniles were interviewed, police said.
Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure said the earlier charges were the result of new victims developed during the course of the investigation but he would not elaborate further.
Sponseller was arraigned in March and released on a $55,000 surety bond. Each charge carries a possible prison term of 10 to 20 years and a fine of between $500 and $5,000.
According to the civil complaint, the boy was a student and Van Devender and played on the basketball team for Sponseller. From October 2022 to March 2023, he says Sponseller sexually abused him numerous times on school property.
He says the school board knew or should have known of similar conduct and other inappropriate conduct of Sponseller with students while employed at Van Devender Middle School and Parkersburg South High School.
The complaint says the board had received complaints about Sponseller from several persons but concealed and misrepresented the facts and showed deliberate indifference to his conduct by failing to take corrective action.
“Defendant Board of Education received notice that defendant Sponseller’s presence at school posed a serious threat to the well-being of students long before the incidents with S.D., but never revealed the knowledge to plaintiffs, fraudulently concealing or misrepresenting material facts to plaintiffs,” the complaint states.
The plaintiff accuses the defendants of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, fraud and collusion.
In addition to the sexual abuse, he says he has suffered physical injury, psychological damage, pain, suffering, permanent damage, diminution of earning capacity, loss of capacity to enjoy life and medical expenses for treatment. His mother seeks damages for loss of consortium.
They seek joint and several compensatory damages, punitive damages, court costs, attorney fees, pre- and post-judgment interests and other relief.
The plaintiffs are being represented by James R. Leach and Victoria J. Sopranik of Jim Leach LC in Parkersburg.
Wood Circuit Court case number 24-C-308