Report on alleged Wenatchee bus rapes to be released
WENATCHEE – The Wenatchee School District plans to release by Feb. 6 the full report of its investigation of alleged sexual assaults on a chartered bus carrying the Wenatchee High School’s freshman football team.
Court records show the district is also in talks to pay up to $15,000 in a separate legal settlement involving the same student.
The district issued a news release Dec. 19 saying the investigation found that supervision was lax and ineffective on the bus that was transporting 45 students back from a Sept. 6 game in Spokane.
The Wenatchee World has requested a full copy of the investigation completed by independent investigator Kris Cappel under contract with the district. District Superintendent Brian Flones said the school board has to review the report with legal counsel representing the district and others involved before it can be released. “Once everyone has a chance to review this, then we want to get it out,” Flones said. He said that should be by Feb. 6. The Wenatchee Police Department investigation of the incident has already been released.
A 15-year-old ninth-grader, now expelled from Wenatchee High School, has been charged with three counts of second-degree rape. He has been released from juvenile detention on $50,000 bond. The trial date, originally scheduled to begin in Chelan County Superior Court in early January, was delayed at a pretrial hearing Tuesday until Feb. 13.
The only coach supervising the bus ride, Kevin Sellers, has been put on administrative leave as a coach. Other coaches traveled in a separate vehicle.
The school district has since changed its athletic bus supervision policies to mandate, rather than recommend, that three coaches or other adult supervisors be on each bus transporting teams, Flones said.
At the time of the bus trip, the juvenile suspect had already been disciplined for assaulting another student last January. That case was close to completion in juvenile court when the suspect was arrested on the bus allegations.
The injured student’s family filed suit last July against the Wenatchee School District and the suspect child’s parents. A court-appointed guardian ad litem, Wenatchee attorney Thomas Janisch, offered a report Dec. 5 recommending a $15,000 payment to the victim from the school district, plus $10,000 from the suspect’s family.