Judge Consolidates Two Sexual Abuse Lawsuits Against LAUSD

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA — A judge Monday combined two separate lawsuits against Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of five girls who say they were molested at a North Hollywood elementary school. Both lawsuits accuse Lino Cabrera, who worked in a computer lab at Oxnard Street Elementary School, as the assailant.

Cabrera was previously sentenced to eight years in prison on February 10 for sexually abusing six female students. In January, the 28-year-old former teacher pleaded no contest to one felony count each of continuous sexual abuse and committing a lewd act on a child, along with four misdemeanor counts of child molestation.

The first lawsuit on behalf of three girls was filed March 3, while the second lawsuit involving two other girls came on June 22. Judge Barbara Scheper consolidated the two complaints after hearing no opposition.

Judge Scheper also dismissed the Unruh Civil Rights Act allegations brought in both lawsuits, citing a recent ruling that school districts are not businesses.

The two plaintiffs in the June lawsuit also accused sexual battery and negligence. Judge Scheper told the lawyers to amend their complaint, sayin she saw no evidence that the district ratified any sexual battery. An attorney for the two girls said she will add another plaintiff to her part of the case and dismiss Cabrera as a defendant.

An attorney for the other three girls, who filed suit in March, said they will only pursue a negligence cause of action and that Cabrera will remain a defendant.

Most of the abuses took place in 2019, according to the two lawsuits.

"While Cabrera sexually abused, sexually molested and sexually harassed ... (the) LAUSD ... had knowledge or reason to know that Cabrera took an unusual interest and spent an inordinate amount of time with each plaintiff," said the court papers of the original lawsuit.

According to the second lawsuit, Cabrera frequently isolated minors at the school, and various Oxnard Street Elementary teachers and administrators who knew of the practice took ineffective or no action.

The judge did not set a trial date, but scheduled a case management conference for January 28.