King 5 | Seattle dentist alleges he was paralyzed after surgery at UW Harborview

King 5 | Seattle dentist alleges he was paralyzed after surgery at UW Harborview

 

SEATTLE — A Seattle dentist permanently paralyzed after a surgery at University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center filed a tort claim last month, accusing the doctors who performed the procedure of negligence and not properly detailing the risks involved.

According to the tort claim filed March 21, Dr. Ron Ko had surgery at UW Harborview to remove a spinal cord neoplasm, a benign tumor. 

My News LA | Mountain View Unified Sex Abuse Victims Awarded $48M

My News LA | Mountain View Unified Sex Abuse Victims Awarded $48M

 

A jury has awarded $48 million to six victims of sexual molestation committed by a former elementary school teacher employed by the Mountain View School District in El Monte.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune | 6 students molested by teacher in South El Monte win $48 million in lawsuit vs. the educator and school district

San Gabriel Valley Tribune | 6 students molested by teacher in South El Monte win $48 million in lawsuit vs. the educator and school district

Six former Mountain View School District students molested by a teacher won their lawsuit against the district and their ex-teacher and were awarded $48 million by a jury on Monday, April 14.

The district will have to pay $36.2 million of the $48 million while the rest will come from ex-teacher, Joseph Alfred Baldenebro, according to the ex-students’ lawyers.

Baldenebro is in prison for committing lewd acts on students.

“Justice finally came for these six survivors,” Michael Carillo, attorney for the victims, said Tuesday. “Mountain View School District fought them for so many years without accepting any responsibility for the lifelong harm they caused. Shame on them.”

The ex-students, their guardians and parents sued Mountain View District, Baldenebro and Does 1 to 100 in 2018. The trial started March 14 and lasted a month.

The jury deliberated two days, said Nicholas C. Rowley, also an attorney for the plaintiffs.

“The impact of this verdict is a vindication of the child molestation victims against the school district that not only failed to protect them, but that also served as an accomplice in the molestations by its egregious negligence,” Rowley said. “ We believe that this jury verdict will serve to protect millions of other children in educational institutions throughout the country.”

The district ignored countless warnings, and predictably, a wake of child victims suffered the consequences, Rowley said.

Campus Safety | Jury Awards $48 Million to Former Students in California School Molestation Case

Campus Safety | Jury Awards $48 Million to Former Students in California School Molestation Case

EL MONTE, Calif. — Six former students of the Mountain View School District were awarded $48 million in damages on Monday after a jury ruled against the district and a former teacher convicted of molesting them.

The 12-person jury found that the former teacher, Joseph Alfred Baldenebro, 62, was responsible for molesting six fourth- and fifth-grade students at Miramonte Elementary School on school grounds over several years. The jury also determined that the district was negligent in supervising and employing Baldenebro, leading to the abuse that occurred in the classroom and elsewhere on the campus.

In 2018, Baldenebro pleaded no contest to one felony count of a lewd act upon a child and four misdemeanor counts of child molestation. He was initially sentenced to eight years in prison, but his sentence was later extended by 12 years when additional victims came forward. He was also required to register as a sex offender for life.

Jurors found that the molestation occurred due to a pattern of negligence, as the district failed to properly supervise Baldenebro during his tenure at Miramonte Elementary.

The impact of this verdict is a vindication of the child molestation victims against the school district that not only failed to protect them, but that also served as an accomplice in the molestations by its egregious negligence,” Nicholas C. Rowley, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Rowley said the district ignored countless warnings by other teachers and students about Baldenebro’s inappropriate behavior. The abuse happened between 2002 and 2004, in 2010 and 2011, and in 2016 and 2017. Principals gave him written warnings in 2001, 2005 and 2010, but law enforcement was not notified.

Out of the total $48 million awarded on Monday, the Mountain View School District will pay $36.2 million, with the remaining amount to be paid by Baldenebro, according to the ex-students’ legal team.

Since the abuse came to light, the Mountain View School District said it has implemented measures to bolster student safety and provide awareness training about sexual assault and abuse.

Yahoo News | Los Angeles jury awards $48 million to students abused by teacher at South El Monte school

Yahoo News | Los Angeles jury awards $48 million to students abused by teacher at South El Monte school

A jury has awarded $48 million to six former students of a South El Monte elementary school who were sexually abused by a longtime teacher.

The students, who ranged in age from 8 to 10 at the time of the abuse, had reported that their teacher, Joseph Baldenebro, inappropriately touched, assaulted or harassed them while they attended Miramonte Elementary School. The abuse occurred between the early 2000s and 2017.

The Monday verdict came after a monthlong trial in which lawyers for the students presented evidence that Mountain View School District had warnings of inappropriate behavior by Baldenebro dating to the 1990s but took no action.

Baldenebro, 62, was convicted in 2018 of lewd or lascivious acts with children and sentenced to 8 years in prison. A second set of criminal charges related to child sexual abuse was filed against him in 2022 and resulted in a no-contest plea in the summer of 2024 and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He’s eligible for parole in 2031, according to state prison records.

“This school district knew about this guy — knew about this pedophile — for over 20 years,” said Nick Rowley, one of the lawyers who represented the former students in their lawsuit against the school district. “There were so many red flags — warning after warning after warning to the principals who just ignored it, who didn’t do anything, and who actually covered it up.”

Lawyers for Mountain View School District did not respond to a request Tuesday for comment. In a statement, the school district said it “unequivocally condemns abuse of any kind and remains deeply saddened by the harm caused to our students and community.”

The school district had acknowledged negligently supervising Baldenebro, who taught at the district for more than two decades, but asserted it was Baldenebro who caused the harm to the students, not the district.

The oldest of the former students had said she was in Baldenebro’s class from 2002 to 2004, during third and fourth grade, and that she was 9 years old at the time of the abuse, according to court papers.

She recounted growing close with Baldenebro, and said he had suggested he could become her “godparent,” according to an amended lawsuit filed in the case.

The student said she was aware that Baldenebro was the “godparent” to others, and court papers describe the benefit that Baldenebro gave to his purported godchildren: trips to amusement parks, lunches, clothes, CDs and after-school parties.

Rowley, the lawyer, said Tuesday that Baldenebro described himself as a godfather to 24 students over a period of years.

In court papers, the student said that after she entered fourth grade, Baldenebro after school would summon her to sit on his lap, where he would touch her and kiss her. “He would tell her he loved her and he would tightly pull her into him,” lawyers for the student wrote in a trial brief in 2021.

In 2004, the student told the then-principal about her uncomfortable experiences with Baldenebro. Around that time, the student, her parents and Baldenebro met with the principal. Baldenebro “accused her of overreacting, and that he was just doing that as an act of love and care,” according to court papers.

The principal “convinced her parents that this behavior by Baldenebro was normal because he was her godfather,” according the a pretrial brief.

The jury awarded the student $9 million of the $48-million verdict, the second-largest amount.

Other former students recounted that they were subjected to unwanted hugs, kisses and patts on their butts, according to a pretrial brief filed by their lawyers. One student said Baldenebro fondled her genitalia and then raped her in his classroom; the student, whose name The Times is not disclosing, was awarded $16.5 million.

Of the total verdict, jurors held the Mountain View School District responsible for slightly more than $36 million; Baldenebro is responsible for the rest, although unlikely to pay.

A spokesperson for the district, Jocelyn Rios, said she was unable to disclose whether all or part of the verdict would be covered by the school district’s insurance companies or whether other district funds would be tapped to pay it.

In a statement, the district said it had instituted “meaningful steps … with the goal of preventing future incidents from going undetected or unreported.”

Among the steps are an annual “Be Seen: Be Heard” effort, described as “a district-wide, age-appropriate sexual assault and abuse awareness and prevention” program.

Before trial, lawyers for the district had offered a settlement of about $100,000 per student, Rowley said.

“From the very beginning of this case, the school district and their lawyers devalued what these victims went through and minimized what happened to them,” said Michael Carrillo, the lead attorney on the case representing the former students. “The jury saw through all of that.”