Mass. school district, diocese failed to stop teacher from abusing student, lawsuits allege

Groomed and raped by her former teacher, a Massachusetts woman is now suing the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District and the Diocese of Fall River, claiming both institutions failed to prevent the abuse. 

Per court records, the woman was 14 years old when she was sexually harassed and assaulted by Gilbert Hernandez, her Sunday school teacher and a substitute at her middle school. 

Hernandez was convicted of seven counts of rape and several other charges last year and was sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison. At his sentencing, the woman told the court the abuse robbed her of her childhood and resulted in nightmares and PTSD flashbacks that cause her to be physically ill. 

Using the pseudonym Jane Jones, she sued the school district last week in federal court and filed a separate complaint in state court against the diocese. The diocese declined to comment on the lawsuit, and the school district did not respond to a request for comment Monday. 

Hernandez sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped Jones on multiple occasions in 2018, sometimes in classrooms, according to her lawsuit against the school district. His “special focus, inappropriate attention, and persistent boundary violations were open, obvious, and readily observed by students and teachers,” the complaint alleges. 

But school officials allegedly failed to act, even after another student alerted them that Hernandez was “getting too close” to Jones, according to the lawsuit. While the school’s principal and another teacher spoke to Hernandez about the other student’s statement, neither took further steps to speak with Jones or alert the police or the Department of Children and Families, the lawsuit alleges. 

Meanwhile, the teen’s “distress was obvious, because she was having problems concentrating, was becoming ill, and had visible emotional episodes,” according to the complaint. 

The abuse also allegedly occurred at St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church in East Freetown, where Hernandez taught Jones in the parish’s Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program, or CCD.

Jones alleges church leaders didn’t question Hernandez when they saw him driving her to and from classes, sitting alone with her in a classroom, and making frequent physical contact with her. Hernandez “was always alone” with Jones and would sexually assault her in the pew during special Masses, according to the lawsuit. 

Concerned about his conduct, church leaders eventually ousted Hernandez under the guise of a program “restructure,” the complaint said. But Hernandez “did not take his termination well,” according to the lawsuit, and “wrote a long, rambling letter about his CCD service” and “made it clear that he had a special relationship” with Jones.  

While the parish’s pastor convinced Hernandez not to read his letter at a public meeting with CCD parents, church leaders never followed up with Jones or her family, the lawsuit alleges.

Jones’s life “changed completely after this period of abuse,” the complaint said. “It took her years before she was able to tell anyone what … [Hernandez] had done to her.”

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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