A judge is mulling his decision to impose a severe sanction on LAUSD over a child abuse case

A judge is mulling his previous decision to impose a severe sanction on Los Angeles Unified School District in a lawsuit by a man who alleges he was sexually abused by an administrator when the plaintiff was a boy.

Los Angeles Judge Gary D. Roberts heard arguments Monday on the LAUSD’s request that he reconsider his Nov. 7 ruling that the district had misused the discovery process to the detriment of the plaintiff, identified only as John Doe, and that the LAUSD disobeyed a court order to provide the discovery.

Specifically, Roberts said he was finding that the district knew or should have known that the alleged abuser, then-Assistant Principal William Webb, posed a danger to students and was unfit to be an employee at Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts as of the 2010-11 school year. The plaintiff will therefore not have to prove that fact at trial.

In their court papers urging reconsideration of the November ruling, LAUSD attorneys state that the decision “wins the case for the plaintiff” and provides a “windfall” for Doe. The district lawyers contend the ruling was contrary to the evidence because the plaintiff’s own liability expert acknowledged that the district did not know until after August 2014 that Webb had allegedly begun abusing Doe in 2004.

“Yet, the court has issued an order finding the exact opposite —that the district did know that Webb had the propensity to abuse minors,” the LAUSD attorneys state in their court papers.

Webb was one of the founding administrators at Cortines School, where he worked in 2009-14. The plaintiff, now in his mid-20s, was 14 years old and a high school freshman when he began the 2013-14 school year at the school, according to the lawsuit brought in April 2024. Webb was 49 years old at the time.

Doe has settled the part of the case against Webb. No terms were revealed.

Trial of the part of the case against the LAUSD is scheduled Nov. 2. In their court papers, LAUSD attorneys deny Doe’s claims and say Webb’s alleged abuses occurred outside his duties with the district and that any dangerous propensities Webb had were unknown to the LAUSD.

According to Doe’s childhood abuse complaint, soon after meeting the plaintiff, Webb began “grooming” and ‘conditioning” Doe by paying special attention to him and spending unusual amounts of time with the boy.

Webb also was a Facebook friend with many Cortines School students and accepted when Doe sent him a friend request, the suit states. Webb began messaging plaintiff through the Facebook app and the two later switched to a more secure messaging app, where the communications became more sexually oriented, the suit alleges.

“Webb messaged plaintiff on a regular basis and started having him come to Webb’s office to eat lunch during the school day,” according to the suit, which further states that school administrators saw the two eating lunch alone.

During the lunches, Webb made numerous inappropriate sexual comments to Doe, calling him “cute” and mature for his age and telling the boy people with whom he would like to have intimacy, the suit states.

Webb also drove Doe home in his personal vehicle and once stopped the car, then kissed and inappropriately touched the plaintiff before reaching the boy’s house, according to the suit, which additionally states Webb “sexually abused plaintiff on multiple occasions after that.”

Webb kept messaging Doe after the plaintiff’s freshman year and invited him to have lunch on the school campus, which was open for summer school and for administrators to do work, the suit states.

Webb continued many of the same abuses and lunch invitations during Doe’s sophomore year, according to the complaint.

In 2019, the LAUSD settled a lawsuit with another man who alleged he was sexually abused by Webb in 2004-08, when the plaintiff was a teen at Vista Middle School in Van Nuys.

The plaintiff in the earlier suit sued in December 2015 and was identified only as John R.C. Doe. Webb was arrested in 2016 and charged with one count each of committing a lewd act on a child, oral copulation of a person under 18 and sodomy of a person under 18, but the District Attorney’s Office later dropped the charges, according to R.C. Doe’s attorney, Michael Carrillo.

LAUSD lawyers maintained in their court papers that R.C. Doe, now in his 30s, waited too long to file a claim and a lawsuit against the district. The lawyers also stated the district could not be held liable for Webb’s alleged misconduct because it was not done in the course of his employment.

LAUSD attorneys want any mention of the R.C. Doe settlement excluded from the Doe case trial.