A woman accuses a schoolmate of raping her at age 12. The school system says she is making it up.
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A 24-year-old woman is telling jurors that she was repeatedly raped and sexually harassed a decade ago as a seventh-grade student in Virginia, and that school officials reacted to her pleas for help with indifference. But lawyers for the school system say she is making it up, and she wept on the stand Tuesday when she was cross-examined about evidence suggesting her allegations were untrue. An eight-person civil jury in federal court in Alexandria will have to decide whether the woman is telling the truth. The case is one among several high-profile sexual misconduct cases that have been filed in recent years against northern Virginia school systems.
