Timeline: School coverup against 'Kate' in alleged rape?

A chronology of events. A miscarriage of justice?

Alleged Rape in Fairfax County, Va.

Summary

In a 76-page lawsuit, annotated here with the real names of the defendants, a former Fairfax County student, “Kate,” now 23, alleges that school staffers knew she had experienced increasing threatening sexual harassment at her locker for months and alleged sexually assault and rape in a secluded area near her bus stop several times, including at knifepoint with threats to kill her and her family if she reported the attacks. The filing described the assault as "consistent with the modus operandi of human and sexual traffickers in the Fairfax community." 

Who’s Who

“Kate” aka “B.R.”

In the civil complaint, Civil No. 1:19-cv-00917-RDA-TCB, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, the plaintiff, 23 in April 2023, alleged the school system engaged in a coverup when she went to school officials seeking help for sexual harassment that led to the alleged rape and sexual assault. While the plaintiff goes by the initials “B.R.” in the complaint, B.R. v. Fairfax County School Board et al., a judge once called the plaintiff “Kate” to both protect her anonymity, he said, and also extend to her the humanity of having a name. 

According to court filings, “Kate” is Asian American with a parent from India, and she allegedly faced anti-Asian bullying at Rachel Carson Middle School because of her ethnic heritage.

Fairfax County School Board

1. 12 board members

Nine Fairfax County current and former staffers

Docket entry No. 82, filed on Feb 14, 2020, lists the staffers’ names publicly, identifying nine staffers or former staffers of Fairfax County Public Schools as defendants. They include five staff members still working at Fairfax County Public Schools, according to public records:

1. Former Rachel Carson Middle School principal August Frattali, now an interim non-school administrator at Luther Jackson Middle School;

2. Former Rachel Carson assistant principal Phil Hudson, now an assistant principal at Frost Middle School;

3. Assistant principal Sybil Terry, still at Rachel Carson Middle School;

4. School-based technology specialist Megan Carr, still at Rachel Carson Middle School;

5. Former Rachel Carson counselor Joanne Fraundorfer, now a counselor at Franklin Middle School.

Another three staffers have retired, according to public records:

1. Assistant principal Tamara B. Ballou;

2. Counselor Brenda Humphrey;

3. Teacher Francis Tarrant.

Working elsewhere:

1. One former Rachel Carson Middle School teacher, Monique Patwary-Faruque, is currently employed in Albemarle Public Schools in Charlottesville, according to public records.

Former student defendants

1. “C.K.” (male)

2. “J.O.” (female)

3. “C.N.” (male)

Timeline

Month 1

October 2011

During the 2011-2012 school year, school administrators and staff members allegedly covered up the sexual assault, harassment and rape of a 12-year-old girl, identified in court as “Kate,” at Rachel Carson Middle School in Herndon. It’s been learned that five of them continue to work in Fairfax County Public Schools, even after a disturbing school district response to the alleged assault, including telling the student to “be a big girl” and accusing her of having “a part” in the abuse, according to documents obtained by the Fairfax County Times.

According to the complaint, the seventh grader’s life took a dramatic –  and violent –  turn in October 2011 when she was in seventh grade, visiting the home of a male classmate to visit a pumpkin patch. When the plans fell apart, the classmate “made unwelcomed sexual advances,” the next day spreading “false rumors'' that “Kate” gave “blow jobs” and “hand jobs.” Soon after, the classmate and others started calling “Kate” names at school, including “slut,” “whore,” “hoe,” “lesbian” and “bisexual,” sexually harassing, assaulting and touching her.

“Kate” immediately “attempted to meet with her guidance counselor,” Humphrey, but the counselor “thwarted those attempts by conveying to Plaintiff that she was too busy to see her,” the complaint says.Humphrey retired from Fairfax County Public Schools after 20 years in 2021, according to a retirement program on the Fairfax County Public Schools website.

“Having been turned away” by the counselor, the complaint states, the young girl “began reporting her harassment to her teachers,” Carr, Patwary-Faruque and Tarrant. They were “among the teachers who knew or should have known” of the sexual harassment “Kate” allegedly experienced. Carr, who was her homeroom teacher, according to the complaint, is employed as a school-based technology specialist at Rachel Carson according to theschool’s website. One time, “Kate” told her homeroom teacher “she was tardy to class because she was being ‘hurt’ by other students at her locker.”

After students began assaulting her, the complaint alleges, “Kate” “frequently asked” Tarrant “for help opening her locker in an effort to garner adult supervision in hopes that it would deter her harassers and assailants.” Tarrant retired in 2012 after eight years of work at Fairfax County Public Schools, according to a retirement ceremony document. Patwary-Faruque is currently a history and social studies teacher in Albemarle Public Schools in Charlottesville, according to her Facebookpage. 

“Kate” then met with Fraundorfer, a Rachel Carson counselor now a counselor at Franklin Middle School in Chantilly, according to the school’s website. “Kate” reported that male students were “bullying and sexually harassing her by calling her sexually suggestive and derogatory names, and that these students were sexually assaulting and battering her by unwantedly and offensively touching her.” In response to Plaintiff’s reports of sexual harassment, battery, and assault, the counselor allegedly told “Kate” “that she was simply adapting to middle school.” 

After these failed attempts to get help, the complaint alleges, the boys at the school increased their attacks, one time allegedly tackling her at her bus stop, “forcibly removed her clothing,” then “sexually assaulted and sexually battered Plaintiff by digitally penetrating her vagina,” taking photos of her and threatening to send photos to school classmates. The attacks included forced oral sex, vaginal and anal rape and “death threats against her and her family.” 

The main assailant, called C.K. in the complaint, told her he “was grooming her for the enjoyment of his ‘friends,’ that his friends would ‘make a lot of money’ off of her,” the complaint said.

In court proceedings, “Kate” has said that her assailants threatened to kill her parents and older brother if she told her family, so she initially kept the attacks a secret. 

Month 2

Nov. 21, 2011

On Nov. 21, 2011, the complaint alleges, “Kate” and her parents met with administrators at the school, including the principal, Frattali, and an assistant principal, Terry, after discovering a sexually explicit voicemail that C.K. had sent their daughter and the theft of $50 by C.K. from their daughter. In the voicemail, C.K. allegedly said, he was “going to stick my big fat black di** up your ass deep like you like it.”

According to the complaint, assistant principal Terry allegedly told “Kate” and her parents that C.K. “had a very hard life and been in enough trouble” and asked “Kate” and her parents “why they were trying to ruin a young boy’s life.”Terry is still an assistant principal at Rachel Carson and supervisor for special education and career and technical education, according to the Rachel Carson website. 

According to his LinkedIn Account, Frattali worked at Rachel Carson Middle School as a principal from July 2003 to July 2015. According to the official Fairfax County schools website, he is now interim non-school administrator at Jackson Middle School.

Nov. 22, 2011

The next day,  Nov. 22, 2011, the complaint notes, the assistant principal, Terry, met with the parents and “Kate” in her office, “where she reached into her drawer, pulled out fifty dollars ($50.00), and extended her hand with the fifty dollars towards Plaintiff’s mother while laughing and stating she wanted Plaintiff’s mother to have the money back ‘before she spent it’ on Christmas shopping herself.”

Another assistant principal, Hudson, was in charge of seven grade student conduct and discipline, but the complaint alleges that none of the administrators disciplined the boys harassing “Kate,” including a “mob attack” at her locker, revealing the school district’s discipline policy was just “a pretense” for “superficial, self-serving investigations” designed to “portray” the school district and school “as a safe environment.”

According to an official school district announcement, Hudson was named assistant principal at Frost Middle School in Fairfax, where school officials said a sexual assault occurred in January but have not provided further details. Fairfax County Police say they continue to work with the juvenile who filed the complaint and her family.

Hudson was in charge of 7th grade student conduct and discipline, but the complaint alleges that none of the administrators disciplined the boys harassing “Kate,” including a “mob attack” at her locker, revealing the school district’s discipline policy was just “a pretense” for “superficial, self-serving investigations” designed to “portray” the school district and school “as a safe environment.”

The harassment continued after the Thanksgiving break, the complaint alleges, with warnings from other students to “Kate” that the student C.K. “has a gun and he is not afraid to kill you.”

Month 3

Dec. 14, 2011

Around Dec. 14, 2011, the complaint alleges that when “Kate” told her teacher, Patwary-Faruque, about a male student putting his hands down her pants and sexually harassing her, the teacher told her she needs “to be a big girl” and “deal with the situation yourself.” That month, the complaint alleges, the student was accosted in the school and raped in a closet by three unknown males.

For five months, until “Kate” had to leave school to study safely at home, she alleged that a group of older boys forced her into a closet at school and "repeatedly physically assaulted and battered, sexually assaulted and battered, sexually abused and raped" her, the suit read. 

2012

Month 4

Jan. 27, 2012 — “Kate” goes to Frattali in tears

On Jan. 27, 2012, with the assault and harassment continuing, the complaint says, “Kate” went to her principal, Frattali, in tears and he told her he did “not know what to do.”

Month 5

Feb. 8, 2012 — Students admit “Kate” was smeared as a “whore”

By Feb. 8, 2012, students admitted to an assistant principal, Ballou, that “Kate” was smeared as a “douche, a bitch, a slut and a whore,” the complaint notes. Ballou admitted to the mother that her daughter had been getting death threats but dismissed them as what “kids say,” the complaint alleges.

Ballou was named interim principal at Dogwood Elementary School in 2012 according to a news report, and retired in 2016, according to a document on the Fairfax County Public Schools website.

Feb. 10, 2012 — Frattali says in email “Kate” “had a part” in the rapes

On Feb. 10, 2012, the principal, Frattali, told the mother in an email that her daughter “had a part” in the abuse. The mother forwarded the email to the school district superintendent, Jack Dale, who has since left, and assistant superintendent Fabio Zuluaga, who is still with the school district in the same position.

2012 — Parents withdraw “Kate” from school for her safety

Soon after, following medical advice, the student’s parents pulled her from school to study at home.

Month 6

March 5, 2012 — Nurse performs a SANE exam

In the case, on March 5, 2012, not long after the alleged attacks, a trained nurse completed a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) report, finding that “Kate,” by then 12, “suffered contusions inside her anus thereby corroborating her report of rape and sodomy.” Attorneys for “Kate” noted that school district officials have had the young woman’s SANE exam “since 2020,” and “Kate” also completed a nine-hour neuropsychological test.

But the defendants’ attorneys argued in the filing that the SANE report is “itself disputed” and “not a substitute for examinations,” now requested in the court proceeding.

Lawyers for “Kate” argued the school board and other defendants have had “thousands of pages” of the young woman’s medical records from “over a ten-year period” and a “physical Medical Exam—much less than a series of them—is not necessary and would cause significant harm and additional trauma to Plaintiff.”

June 29, 2012

The Fairfax County Police Department officer, detective Fred Chambers, investigating the case of the alleged rape had previously worked closely with the principal as a school resource officer, or “S.R.O.,” resulting in a coverup, according to the complaint. On June 29, 2012, Zuluaga sent the girl’s mother a letter telling school officials the “incidents of harassment, inappropriate touching and other bullying could not be verified.” However, the complaint says, the police sent “Kate” to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, whose findings “revealed she suffered contusions inside her anus thereby corroborating her report of rape and sodomy.”

2014

August 2014

In an August 2014 decision, the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights reprimanded then-Superintendent Karen Garza for shortcomings with the school’s mishandling of the alleged violations of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination at school, and raised issues with a “broader incident of a potentially hostile environment at the School.” The Office of Civil Rights had reviewed a random sample of incidents of disciplinary offenses and found some instances where the division did not respond in a timely manner under Title IX rules.

2023

About April 12, 2023 — Fairfax County demands pelvic exam in filing

In a filing, lawyers for the school board and the defendants in the case cite Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows for “physical and mental exams,” noting: “Defendants believe that more than one Rule 35 exam will be necessary given that Plaintiff alleges injuries affecting various different bodily systems—e.g., neurological injuries, cardiac injuries, pelvic injuries, psychological injuries, ‘internal derangement of her vagina, cervix, uterus, and anus,’ and unspecified ‘bodily injuries, permanent in nature.’” 

A pelvic exam is a gynecological exam, according to medical experts, but Julie Moult, a spokeswoman for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), said, “FCPS is not asking for a gynecological exam of the Plaintiff. It appears you have misread the Joint Discovery Plan filed by the parties.”

April 19, 2023

The case had a pre-trial hearing.

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