Lawsuit claims football player was sexually assaulted inside Seneca Valley High School

On September 17, 2018, six weeks before the highly publicized cases at Damascus High School, court documents claim a freshman football player was sexually assaulted inside a school locker room.

The lawsuit lists the defendants as the Montgomery County Board of Education, Seneca Valley Athletic Director Jesse Irvin, Principal Dr. Marc Cohen, head football coach Fred Kim and junior varsity coach Cody Martin.

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Lawyers for the defendants claim the school board at the time knew about a history of these kinds of incidents and failed to enforce safeguards that could have prevented similar incidents.

The incident at the time, which was first reported by Bethesda Magazine, happened during school hours.

Court documents state other football players, “...held him down, and penetrated, touched, assaulted and slapped,” the victim.

RELATED: Another Damascus HS student rape case moved to juvenile court

Those documents claim the school board initially downplayed the incident by saying, “it was reported as sexual, but after investigation, it was concluded not to be sexual in nature.”

FOX 5 DC reached out to Montgomery County School for comment.

They responded, “MCPS is committed to the safety of all students. The Seneca Valley High School administration acted quickly when these allegations were brought to their attention. While the Montgomery County police were unable to pursue charges based on what the victim shared at the time with the school and law enforcement, the school did take disciplinary action against those believed to have been involved and provided robust support to the student and their family.”

The alleged victim’s lawyer claims the county knew of this type of behavior dating as far back as 2016, when a similar incident happened at another school in the county. The lawyer says the school failed to implement safeguards that could have prevented following incidents from happening.

The case is now filed and depositions from each party will be recorded as soon as the courts reopen.