Head of EWC's outreach program 'unaware' of rape allegation

College sued over allegations 14-year-old was raped during field trip to Georgia

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – New details are emerging about a lawsuit filed against Edward Waters College by a Jacksonville mother who claims her teenage daughter was raped by an older teen during a 2016 field trip sponsored by the college.

Police reports obtained by News4Jax help piece together everything that happened leading up to the civil complaint, which was filed last month in Duval County with a complaint seeking a jury trial and damages in excess of $15,000.

Attorneys for the plaintiff said the suit was filed nearly two years after the incident is alleged to have taken place because the girl's family wanted to wait for police to complete their own investigation into what happened.

The suit accuses Edward Waters of failing to properly vet and supervise a group of minors enrolled in Upward Bound, a college outreach program, when the group stayed the night at an Athens, Georgia hotel in June 2016.

In the complaint, the girl's mother said her daughter, then 14, was coaxed by a 17-year-old boy into coming to visit him in his hotel room. There, the complaint said, the girl was "sexually assaulted" by force and without her consent.

The girl's family filed an incident report with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in December 2017. According to a copy of that report, the girl did not tell her mother about the incident until December 2016, about six months after the field trip.

The report said the mother confronted her daughter after finding text messages on the girl's phone. The messages did not discuss a sexual assault, but instead focused on "other boys, skipping school and having sex with another boy."

According to the report, it wasn't until January 2017 that the girl was interviewed by the University of Florida Child Protection Team. It was then that police in Athens began calling chaperones and parents of other teens who went on the out-of-state trip.

Investigators also contacted Dr. Delacy Sanford, director of the Upward Bound program, who told police he was "unaware of the allegation made by the victim or that a sexual assault was reported from the Upward Bound trip to Athens," the report said.

Through the investigation, police also learned the trip was chaperoned by adults, the students had a 10 p.m. curfew and their rooms were monitored. The last room check is said to have taken place from 11 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Interviews with students who went on the trip found that one teen recalled seeing the girl walk to the older boy's room and return an hour later. That teen said the girl did not mention a sexual assault. The accused teen, now 20, said he did not have a girl in his room, a claim his roommate denied.

The man is now charged with misdemeanor statutory rape, though he has not been arrested.

The college has launched its own investigation into the allegations contained within the complaint. The school declined to answer questions about whether the complaint would change how future field trips are handled, citing the ongoing lawsuit: 

Edward Waters College fully appreciates the sensitivity of this matter. We are respectful of the rights of all involved and take seriously all issues involving the safety and overall well-being of all participants in any of the College’s affiliate programs. As such, however, because of the College’s Policy not to comment on pending legal matters, we have no further comment at this time.


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