A Howard County teenager who was the victim of sex offenses by a former county teacher has filed a $3 million suit claiming that he suffers "extreme emotional distress" because of the incidents.
The lawsuit lists as defendants the teacher, Kirsten Ann Kinley, who pleaded guilty in August to having inappropriate sexual contact with the teen; the school board; the principal at Kinley's former school; and the state.
The suit cites "sexual battery and the extreme and outrageous conduct" on the part of Kinley as the cause of the plaintiff's distress. The suit, filed by attorneys Loyd Byron Hopkins and Michael A. Taylor on behalf of the victim, also claims that Kinley willfully exploited a "vulnerable child in therapy for depression at the time of the sexual assault/battery."
The suit claims that the state of Maryland, the Howard County Board of Education, Hammond Middle School and Principal Kerry McGowan breached their duty to prevent employees from harming students.
The suit, which was filed Feb. 29, notes a "pattern of inappropriate sexual conduct between teachers and children" in the Howard County school system.
The plaintiff, now 18, was a 15-year-old Hammond High student at the time of the offenses, which occurred while Kinley was a teacher at Hammond Middle.
Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin and school board Chairman Frank Aquino said yesterday that they could not comment on the suit because they had not seen it.
Cousin defended the school system's response to recent cases of teacher sex offenses against students, saying at yesterday's school board meeting in Ellicott City, "We've dealt with them. As far as where we had enough information, we've fired them, and we revoked their licenses."
Kinley, 28, pleaded guilty to a third-degree sexual offense for having sexual contact with the plaintiff at her Columbia apartment in late 2004 and early 2005. Kinley, who was arrested in February 2007, had been a special-education teacher in Howard County since 2002 and had worked at Marriotts Ridge High in Marriottsville.
She is serving an 18-month sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. In January, a judge denied a request by Kinley's attorney to allow her to serve the rest of her sentence on home detention because of medical conditions.
Two other Howard County teachers were arrested last year and charged with sex offenses against students. Joseph Samuel Ellis, 25, a former history and government teacher at Glenelg High, was convicted in January of sex abuse of a minor, indecent exposure and telephone misuse. He is to be sentenced this month.
Alan Meade Beier, 52, a former chemistry and physics teacher at River Hill High, is charged with having inappropriate sexual contact with three students. He is scheduled to go to trial March 26.
Cousin said he does not think the cases constitute a growing problem for the school system.
"I don't think it is a pattern," he said yesterday, adding that the school system performs extensive background checks before hiring teachers.
tyeesha.dixon@baltsun.com
Sun reporter John-John Williams IV contributed to this article.