Family files suit over sexual assault at school
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Three family members filed suit in Washington County court this week against two school districts and two teachers in connection with a sexual assault that occurred last year at Charleroi Junior-Senior High School.
Brian and Michelle Federer and their daughter, now 16, demanded a jury trial in their case against the Charleroi Area School District, Beth-Center School District, former Beth-Center teacher Jeffrey A. Hahn Jr. and Jennifer Marie Joyce, a former teacher at Charleroi. Their attorney, Thomas Gravina of Pittsburgh said they are seeking “substantial damages.”
Charleroi Area School District hired Hahn, 24, a seventh-grade social studies teacher in Bethlehem-Center School District, to produce the junior-senior high school’s 2012 musical. After he pleaded guilty to committing sex crimes, Judge John DiSalle sentenced Hahn last month to 4 to 8 years’ imprisonment followed by a decade of state-supervised probation.
Also named as a defendant was Joyce, 27, of Bellevue, who appeared in January before DiSalle and was admitted to the county’s Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition program for first offenders on the charge of failing to report suspected child abuse. She is no longer with the Charleroi Area school district.