New York High School Blames Student For Being Raped Inside Campus, Lawyer Says

The lawyer representing a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by a classmate at a New York high school last year slammed the school for attempting to pin the blame for the sexual assault on the girl.

Attorney Andrew Buzin told the New York Post it was "incomprehensible" that New Rochelle High School would even try to avert the blame from the suspect even after he was arrested.

"For them to come and say anything negative about the victim of the case is quite confounding," Buzin said Tuesday.

Buzin is representing the Orange County victim and her mother in a lawsuit filed against the school in March. It accused a classmate that had been bullying the girl for two years of raping her in a stairwell in January 2020.

Her classmate allegedly pulled the ninth-grader into the stairwell and choked her before she was violently raped. The lawsuit claimed the girl repeatedly said "no" during the assault, which was captured by a surveillance camera, while a security guard stood nearby the whole time.

The suspect was arrested shortly after the attack and was charged as a juvenile, according to records and Buzin. He was still attending class prior to the assault despite having an open case in New York Family Court for another incident involving unlawful sexual contact with another fellow student, the complaint said.

According to the lawsuit, New Rochelle High School was aware of the bullying and ignored it, News 12 reported. The school was also accused of failing to supervise the classmate.

The victim and her mother also claimed the school could have done more to protect the girl and prevent attacks from happening in the first place.

In response, lawyers of the school's insurance company wrote in legal documents, "There was no negligence, fault, or culpable conduct on the part of the [school]."

"Furthermore, there was contributory negligence, assumption of risk, contributory fault and/or culpable conduct attributable to the plaintiffs," they continued.

Buzin said the school's response did not make sense, telling the Post, "It’s incomprehensible, the fact is… by the time that the complaint was filed, [the attacker] had already been adjudicated and there was a disposition in the case that presumably meted out some sort of punishment from the court system."

Parents and students of the school backed the victim upon hearing of the school's statements, staging a protest Saturday and demanding that the school be held accountable.

"They said this 14-year-old girl, it's her fault, even though the boy had a history. They knew!" a high school junior who attended the demonstration said.

The mother of one of the students said, "Instead of spending money on lawyers defending ourselves from our mistakes, perhaps we can put it into training security guards."

Buzin welcomed the support. "It’s heartening to see the support for our client, it’s a good feeling to appreciate that they’re not taking what the school district said about her and that they are going out and making it a point to the school district that this is not acceptable," he said.