Parent sues Verona district, alleges daughter was sexually assaulted repeatedly in school

An elementary school parent is accusing the Verona Board of Education of failing to protect her young daughter from being sexually assaulted by a classmate.

The mother is suing the board, F.N. Brown School Principal Anthony Lanzo, Superintendent Diane DiGiuseppe and teacher Maria Graziano, saying the defendants allowed a male student to sexually assault her daughter at least 20 times during her first- and second-grade years.

DiGuiseppe said the board "has and continues to investigate the allegations" in the lawsuit but could not comment because the litigation is active.

The suit, filed in state Superior Court on April 22, said the girl had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the incidents and that the defendants were "grossly negligent and reckless" in allowing the abuse.

According to the lawsuit, the assaults took place between October 2021 and January 2023 and the district did nothing to address them, but instead "turned a blind eye to the abhorrent discrimination" against the girl.

She told Graziano that the male student "touched her 'down there,'" pointing to her genitals, and Graziano didn't report what she was told to authorities, the suit said.

"Instead, ... Graziano continued to seat [the student] next to her sexual abuser," the suit said.

According to the lawsuit, the male student assaulted the girl at least three times during first grade and numerous times in second grade.

Her mother said the student would follow her daughter into the bathroom, which had two adjoining stalls. The suit said he would assault her in the bathroom, washing his hands and then crawling into her bathroom stall to "physically assault and sexually molest her."

The girl "felt incredible fear when she saw [the male student] from under the stall and heard him washing his hands as he always did before assaulting her," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the male student would threaten the girl, saying he would assault her again if she told anyone, and that her mother couldn't help her. The mother said the school's nurse, Maria Rodgers, noticed a change in the girl's "typical happy and sweet mood" and that she reached out to one of her daughter's first grade teachers.

Isolating herself, disassociating at home

The girl's mother told her teacher that her daughter was isolating herself from friends by being mean and that her daughter told her that the boys were being mean to her.

The lawsuit said the girl began disassociating at home and at school and stopped hugging and showing affection and became "inexplicably" angry and reactive.

The girl's parents took her to a doctor when they saw "vaginal abrasions and raw, rubbed bleeding skin," but she refused to have a genital exam or show the doctor. She spent over a week in the hospital after the nurse said she may have had an absence seizure and that her "stress and trauma response had inflamed her faculties to a troubling degree."

The suit said the sexual assaults led the child to suffer from "numerous dissociative episodes" that led to her ultimately running from the classroom.

According to the lawsuit, the her behavior returned to normal in the summer, but began again when she entered the second grade. In the fall of 2022, the girl was diagnosed with vaginal strep A and her doctor asked the child if she was being molested.

The suit said she had a "visceral reaction" and refused to respond. She began to refuse to go to the bathroom alone, bathe without a bathing suit or wear dresses, and she suffered from nightmares or insomnia and refused to sleep alone.

The girl eventually told Graziano that the male student had touched her, and the lawsuit said the teacher "lambasted" the child for her behavior and insisted she apologize to the other student. The lawsuit said Graziano forced the girl to apologize and didn't move her desk away from the male student.

After an outburst, the girl was taken to the hospital, and when a staff psychologist noted "clear signs of sexual trauma response," the girl told about the sexual abuse.

According to the lawsuit, she was eventually removed from F.N. Brown Elementary School to feel safe.

The lawsuit said the girl's mother met with Lanzo, DiGiuseppe, Graziano and others to talk about what had happened to her daughter.

The family said the defendants exposed their daughter as the subject of their allegation by leaving them off an email sent to the parents of second graders, and that the board made no efforts to integrate the girl back into the school safely.

At a student safety meeting, "Lanzo falsely assured parents that the abuse and trauma suffered by [the girl] did not occur in school, that things like this do not happen at the school and claimed the school's policies were above par," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the girl's mother and the superintendent exchanged emails in which the mother complained that the board had been uncooperative, noting she had offered medical records, releases and additional facts to establish that her daughter had been abused.

The family is seeking damages and a trial by jury, saying the defendants violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination by failing to accommodate the child, discriminating and harassing her, and discriminating against her based on her gender, and that they were negligent, provided negligent supervision and training and were negligent to the emotional distress of the child and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Verona parent sues school, alleges daughter sexually assaulted