A member of the Seneca Valley High School junior varsity football team was allegedly raped by teammates in an unsupervised locker room in September 2018, according to a civil lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

The student — identified in court documents as “John Doe” — was a freshman when he was assaulted before practice on Sept. 17, 2018, the lawsuit said.

“For several minutes, several football players held him down, forced his pants and underwear down, and penetrated, touched, assaulted and slapped John Doe,” according to the suit, which was filed March 9.

The negligence suit claims the Montgomery County Board of Education, school principal Marc Cohen, Athletic Director Jesse Irvin, varsity football coach Fred Kim and JV coach Cody Martin were aware of previous sexual assaults in football locker rooms, and didn’t do enough to prevent the Seneca Valley attack.

According to the suit, Seneca Valley High School didn’t notify law enforcement until four days after the assault.

Kim and Martin were fired in December 2018, according to the lawsuit. Cohen and Turner still work at Seneca Valley.

Thomas DeGonia and Jerry Hyatt, the lawyers for the boy and his mother, said the school officials knew of an earlier football locker room assault, in 2017 at Damascus High School. It was reported to the school, school security and county administration, “but no corrective action was taken by MCPS.”

A few months later, in February 2018, a student-athlete was sexually assaulted in a locker room as part of a hazing ritual.

The Seneca Valley incident occurred about a month before four Damascus High School football players were sexually assaulted by their teammates. After initially being charged as adults in the Damascus case, a judge referred all the defendants to juvenile court, which provides more leniency and privacy for people charged.

According to DeGonia and Hyatt, school officials “knew or should have known of abuse, sexual or otherwise, in the Seneca Valley locker room and in MCPS locker rooms around the county, and as a result, it was reasonably foreseeable that this incident would occur absent proper supervision.”

At this point, there have been no adult or juvenile criminal charges filed in the Seneca Valley case.

In addition to the plaintiffs in the Seneca Valley suit, DeGonia represents the plaintiffs in the Damascus suit, which was filed in February.

Gboyinde Onijala, a spokeswoman for the school system, said in an email, “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.”

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