Former Students Sue S. Pasadena Unified Over Track Coach's Alleged Sexual Abuse

SOUTH PASADENA, CA - Two women who allege they were sexually abused by a track coach while they were students at South Pasadena High School students are suing the school district, court papers obtained Monday show.

The plaintiffs, identified only as Jane Does, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence and sexual harassment and seeking unspecified damages from the South Pasadena Unified School District.

A school district representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit, which was filed Friday.

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Both plaintiffs say they were minors at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.

Various district and school officials, including Superintendent Geoff Yantz, SPHS Principal Janet Anderson and Athletic Director Mark Zalin, all had an obligation to monitor then-track coach Pierre Jonas Hernandez and protect all students, the suit states.

The suit alleges that Hernandez began molesting one of the plaintiffs in April 2013 and that some of the incidents took place on campus, including in a locker room where he inappropriately touched her.

The plaintiff later began to experience emotional difficulties from being molested and later realized her mental problems were caused by Hernandez's conduct, the suit alleges.

Hernandez began abusing the second plaintiff in April 2014, and some of the misconduct also took place at the high school, according to the suit, the suit alleges.

During one on-campus encounter, Hernandez "insisted that he give Jane Doe a full body massage in an underground boys' locker room with nobody else around," the suit alleges.

The second plaintiff also suffered emotional harm, according to the complaint.

Hernandez, 33, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of child molestation and sexual battery involving one girl, but it was not clear if the victim in the criminal case is also one of the plaintiffs in the civil suit.

Alhambra Superior Court Judge Jon Takasugi sentenced Hernandez last September to 180 days in jail -- with service by electronic monitoring -- along with five years probation and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.

He was a track coach at SPHS for about seven years.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of clubrunwithus.com