Dad Sues Alleged Kidnapper Tad Cummins, Maury County Schools

COLUMBIA, TN -- Maury County Schools "failed its obligation to protect students from a predator," the father of a teenage girl allegedly kidnapped by former teacher Tad Cummins says in a lawsuit filed against the district and Cummins himself.

Anthony Thomas, whose 15-year-old daughter was missing for 39 days after the alleged kidnapping by Cummins, says that Culleoka Unit School administrators and district officials did not take adequate steps to prevent a "controlling, manipulative relationship with a vulnerable and impressionable fifteen-year old student," according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court Friday.

The suit says that school officials were aware Cummins and the girl had kissed in his classroom and though Cummins was reprimanded for that incident, Thomas says that, clearly, it wasn't an adequate solution.

Cummins was arrested in secluded Siskiyou County, Calif. in April 2017 after he and the girl had been missing for more than a month. A crucial tip came from a Brentwood native who, coincidentally, had happened to relocate to the extremely isolated area of Northern California.

Cummins is jailed awaiting trial for federal charges of taking a minor across state lines for sex and state kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor charges.

Photo via Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department