Sexually Assaulted Student Sues Hinsdale School Officials

By Art Barnum, Chicago Tribune

Apr. 3–An attorney for a 2004 Hinsdale Central High School graduate who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by the school’s former head basketball coach sued the coach, the school’s principal, the school district and the district’s retired superintendent.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in DuPage County Circuit Court, focuses on school administrators who conducted their own investigation into anonymous allegations concerning former coach and teacher Robert Mueller and a 2001 graduate.

Attorney Terry Ekl contends in the suit that if the officials had properly and legally conducted that first investigation, the 2004 graduate never would have been victimized.

“They swept the issue under the rug,” Ekl said. “They were more concerned about the school’s reputation and their own reputation, and to avoid responsibility they made no effort to get at the truth.”

The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages from Mueller, who was convicted in December of having prolonged sexual relationships with the two female students and is serving a 32-year sentence at Stateville Correction Center in Joliet. Also mentioned in the suit is the Hinsdale High School District 86 school board, Hinsdale Central Principal James Ferguson and former superintendent Roger Miller. The $50,000 plateau allows Ekl to seek an undetermined, much larger amount, at trial.

“Citizens should be appalled at administrators making large salaries and not doing their job. They had a moral obligation to protect the children,” Ekl said.

He said the 2004 graduate is now a community college student.

Hinsdale Central school officials learned through an anonymous message in 2001 that Mueller and the first victim had been seen publicly embracing in a Cook County Forest Preserve in Western Springs.

Miller testified at Mueller’s trial that the school failed to contact any outside agency, such as the Hinsdale Police Department or the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Officials testified that, after receiving denials of the relationship from both Mueller and the parents of the 2001 graduate, the school administrators dropped any further inquiry.

Miller said at the trial that school district attorneys approved their course of action.

Mueller testified at his trial that he never had sexual relations with the 2004 student. He admitted such a relationship with the 2001 student, but said it was only after she turned 18 and had graduated.

After Hinsdale police received an anonymous letter and began an investigation about the second victim, school officials reported the earlier allegation.

Prosecutors contended that the assaults occurred on an almost weekly basis during the girls’ junior and senior years, and that they took place inside the school, in cars and in a local motel.

DuPage County State’s Atty. Joseph Birkett said state law requires school officials to report sexual allegations.

Birkett said he considered charges against Miller and Ferguson for not reporting the incident but decided against it after both men cooperated in the second investigation and signed a legal agreement saying they will report all future allegations.

Mueller testified that when the 2001 graduate was attending an East Coast university, he told school officials that he would be attending a basketball seminar there but instead had a sexual encounter of several days with the college student, with District 86 paying for part of the trip. Mueller admitted on the stand that the seminar was a ruse.

Since the conviction, the school’s athletic director has announced his early retirement, the principal has taken a medical leave of absence and Miller’s name — which had been placed on the district’s administration building — has been removed.

abarnum@tribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune

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