A San Luis Obispo County school district has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit regarding the repeated molestation of a 9-year-old girl with special needs by a school bus driver, reported Los Angeles Times.
David Lamb pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the girl on his bus for over six months in 2017. The plea deal allowed Lamb to avoid a life sentence on several other charges, and he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2019.
A detective testified that the driver showed the child pornography, exposed himself and touched her inappropriately. According to court documents, Lamb has a prior criminal conviction for “peeping” and failed to disclose that conviction on his initial employment application.
In the lawsuit, the article stated that the girl’s attorneys alleged school district officials learned of Lamb’s conviction and automatically disqualified him from ever working in the district.
Unfortunately, three months later and with the help of the district’s transportation supervisor, Lamb was reportedly hired as a bus driver. Attorney David Ring, who represented the girl, said the district violated its own rules by rehiring Lamb because it had become desperate for bus drivers and did not care that they were hiring a man with a history of sex crimes.
According to the suit, the district transportation supervisor had surveillance video from the bus in her possession that showed an incident of Lamb molesting the girl. However, the supervisor reportedly never watched the entire tape.
As a result, the girl was awarded $10 million to settle the lawsuit.
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