Louisiana Voice

(Editor’s note: While the actual lawsuit provides names of those involved, LouisianaVoice has chosen not to print the names in the interest of sensitivity. It is the reader’s option whether or not to open the link to the legal document.)

Cedar Creek School in Ruston has taken an aggressive position in responding to a 20-page LAWSUIT filed in Ruston’s 3^rd Judicial District Court against it and the parents of several students the lawsuit claims were involved in alleged sexual abuse of the son of a Louisiana Tech assistant basketball coach.

Cedar Creek is a private school that was started in 1970 for grades one through nine in response to an anticipated influx of Black students in Lincoln Parish’s public schools. It added a grade in the second, third and fourth years until it was a 12-year school. While attended at first by white students exclusively, today it does have minority enrollment among its 676 students in pre-K through 12^th grade – primarily the children of minority college educators and other professionals.

The lawsuit claims the abuse started in September 2020 when two other boys grabbed the ninth-grader as he attempted to enter his first hour Spanish class. One of the boys, who outweighed him by about 100 pounds, incapacitated him while the other penetrated his anal cavity with an Eiffel Tower statue, the petition says.

The two “committed similar acts almost weekly throughout the Fall of 2020 and the Spring of 2021,” the lawsuit says, adding, “These sexual batteries continued through March of 2021.” Each time, the same two would continue the same type attacks with the statue “without school intervention.”

“Throughout the school year, Paul (a pseudonym) suffered multiple sexual batteries” that involved a water bottle and threats to rape him with a broomstick. “In total, Paul suffered at school in this manner in excess of twenty-five times over the 2020-2021 scholastic year,” the lawsuit claims. “During several of these batteries, other Cedar Creek students stood by and watch or laughed while Paul suffered humiliation and abuse.”

In addition to the sexual abuse claimed, the lawsuit also maintains that other students encouraged him to commit suicide.

It was not until May 13, 2021, “Paul Hell Day,” that his parents would learn the true extent of their son’s fears and the abuse he had suffered at school the lawsuit says. His mother was contacted by Cedar Creek Principal Andrew Yepson some 10 hours after the “Paul Hell Day” incident, the day that the year-long abuse culmination was plotted with social media encouragement to Cedar Creek students to bully Paul.

The suit says the boy’s parents “had no knowledge or information that Paul was being bullied, abused, assaulted and violated at school. No one from Cedar Creek had ever notified or contacted them until May 14, the day after “Paul Hell Day,” when two coaches admitted the ongoing abuse with one of them saying that he thought they had “nipped this in the bud during basketball season.”

Cedar Creek, for its part, has expelled five of the perpetrators and the lawsuit says that Paul is cooperating with local law enforcement regarding the prosecution of his abusers. His parents, meanwhile, have pulled Paul and his three younger siblings out of Cedar Creek and enrolled them elsewhere. “In essence, this has allowed Cedar Creek to wash its hand[s] of the past problems,” says the petition.

But by Cedar Creek’s expulsion of the five, they, too, will attend the same public school as Paul (Ruston High School), ultimately placing all of the students involved “back together in the same scholastic environment. As a result, Paul must again attend school with the same boys who battered, bullied and harassed him at Cedar Creek,” the lawsuit says.

In fact, LouisianaVoice has learned that one of the five has enrolled at Neville High School in Monroe.

Paul is represented by attorneys J.W. Bearden of Dallas and Ashley Mulé of New Orleans.

The lawsuit has prompted an explosion of speculative social media comment, most of it critical of Cedar Creek.

The situation has become so volatile that one LouisianaVoice reader said he saw little option than for Paul’s parents to get his four children out of Ruston. “I don’t see how they can stay in this environment now,” he said. “If I were the head basketball coach at Tech, I’d be trying to help him fine a position at another school.”

Perhaps because of the online reaction, the Cedar Creek Board of Directors did not shrink from going public with its own position, issuing a three-page formal response on Monday:

The lawsuit that was filed against Cedar Creek raises many questions that need to be asked of the lawyer who filed it. But let us be clear – the facts and evidence, if there is any evidence, will not support the allegations.

We acknowledge the serious nature of these allegations, and express our sympathy to the … family. We also acknowledge the fact that the Plaintiff was bullied at our school. That should never have happened.

There are four major issues here:

1. When was the school aware of this situation and what was done?

2. Was the Plaintiff penetrated “in excess of 25 times” by a foreign object that is larger around than a soda can?

3. Was Plaintiff involved in planning Hell Day with several of his friends?

4. Is there a video showing a sexual battery of the Plaintiff?

These are the facts as we know them:

1. As soon as the school administration was made aware on May 13 that bullying was occurring, we took immediate action. An internal investigation commenced, the [parents of the victim] were notified, and we then launched an independent investigation using a retired 20-year Ruston Police veteran, trained in juvenile investigations, who was given total freedom to follow the issues wherever the facts led.

As a result of that investigation, and based on school policy, five students were expelled from Cedar Creek. Bullying, harassment, intimidation, stalking, and similar actions have no place in our school community and will not be tolerated.

2. There is no evidence of any kind that the Plaintiff’s anal cavity or rectum was ever penetrated. The Eiffel Tower object that is in a video and is alleged to have been inserted into Plaintiff’s rectum is made of stiff, rough wire and is 3-inches square, which is significantly larger than a soda can. See pictures at end.

If that hard, rough metal tower with four sharp corners was forced into a body cavity and then withdrawn even once, severe physical damage requiring medical attention would have immediately occurred. To our knowledge, at no time did the Plaintiff seek medical attention or tell his parents or anyone else that he had been penetrated by this object.

In the detailed, written account of alleged events provided by the Plaintiff’s parents to Cedar Creek, no allegation whatsoever is made regarding anal penetration.

3. During the detailed independent investigation that was conducted by the retired Ruston police officer, it was determined that Hell Day was an event that was planned by the Plaintiff and several of his friends as part of an effort to replicate in some manner the training that Navy Seals go through. Each student, including the Plaintiff, agreed to have their own Hell Day, and Plaintiff happened to be first.

Before Plaintiff’s scheduled Hell Day, May 13, one or more other students became aware of the scheduled event and posted a notice on social media to be sure to bully Plaintiff that day. Early on May 13, the scheduled Hell Day for Plaintiff, a Cedar Creek teacher witnessed Plaintiff being bullied and immediately intervened, protected Plaintiff, and reported the incident to school administration. This was the first notification the school had of Hell Day. An internal investigation was started immediately by Cedar Creek administration and the [parents] were notified by the school.

4. There is no video showing a sexual assault or battery. The video that has been cited, linked below, was produced by Cedar Creek students as part of a French class exchange program assignment designed to show students in France about various activities at Cedar Creek. The students were required to use the French language in the video to demonstrate proficiency.

The full-length video, available here https://youtu.be/-OZ0Jf2hA6c with faces blurred and no audio to protect minors, contains a short section of some unidentifiable students poking an Eiffel Tower statue at a student in the ribs. The video does not show a sexual battery or child pornography, as alleged in the lawsuit.

Therefore, we believe the Dallas lawyer who filed this lawsuit, J.W. Bearden, should be asked to answer and document the following questions:

1. What proof or evidence is there of these alleged sexual assaults and penetration? Physical evidence? Video? Pictures? Medical records? Witness corroboration?

2. Did the Plaintiff seek medical attention for physical injuries as a result of the alleged sexual assaults at any time? If yes, what were the results?

3. While he was a student, why did the Plaintiff never tell his parents or school administrators about the allegations made in the lawsuit?

4. Why are these alleged penetrations not mentioned in the list of allegations the [parents] provided to Cedar Creek on May 14th?

In the interim, in order to not inflict unjustified damage on the minors involved, we ask everyone to stop spreading rumors, stop making baseless accusations, stop jumping to unfounded conclusions, stop posting items on social media that involve minors, and stop calling for actions that are unjustified and potentially damaging to other human beings, including minors.

The Cedar Creek Board of Directors

Paul Riley, President

Kyle Green

Lomax Napper

Jered Ramsey

Tonya Wade

Jim Worthey

Melanne Turpin